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THE 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 

DAVID R. MAJOR 

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY IN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY 



REVISED EDITION 



R. G. ADAMS AND COMPANY 
1914 



rt*^ 






Copyright, 1913. 1914. 
By DAVID R. MAJOR 



AUG 15 1914 



The Heer Press 
Columbus, Ohio 



'C1,A3S0001 




PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 

This book is designed to serve as a text for stu- 
dents who are pursuing a first course in psychology. 
It aims to present in an elementary way, and within 
a small compass, the more easily observed facts of 
our mental life together with the generally accepted 
principles of their explanation. Its field is chiefly 
the study of the normal, adult, human mind, and so 
may be described as an introduction to what is 
known as General Psychology. 

In these days, 'the winter of our discontent,' the 
writer of a first book in psychology may follow one 
of three courses : he may appear as 'the champion 
of the structural psychology' or as the advocate of a 
psychology in terms of behavior or he may proceed 
after the manner of the eclectic, without special re- 
gard to the systematic agreement of the topics and 
matter selected. In the preparation of the present 
text, the writer followed the third course, and a 
word of explanation seems in place. 

It is clear that many of the topics that belong to 
an introductory survey of psychology lend them- 
selves easily and naturally to the functional method 
of treatment, while certain other topics, no less im- 
portant in a first book, invite rather a structural 
treatment. It is clear, moreover, that the student 
may get important side lights from the biological, 
physiological, genetic and other points of view. 

(iii) 



IV PREFACE 

With these facts in mind, the author has disregarded 
systematic aims and has incorporated materials 
gathered from various points of view. He will 
admit, however, that such a course is not without 
its qualms ; and he will not be surprised if the com- 
pounding of materials gathered from various 
sources, together with the shifts in respect to psy- 
chological doctrine involved thereby, should prove 
disturbing to those psychologists to whom system, 
consistency, and completeness are both inspiration 
and guide. At the same time, it is the writer's pres- 
ent belief that in a first course in psychology the 
student should be permitted to follow the easier, 
the more natural ways of approach ; and that the 
sharp delimitation of points of view, consistency, 
and systematization belong rather to his later psy- 
chological achievements. 

A word of explanation of the relative length of the 
chapter on "Consciousness and the Nervous Sys- 
tem," and of the preponderance of anatomical over 
physiological matter therein may be required. Psy- 
chologists are agreed that the successful pursuit of 
their science presupposes at least an elementary 
knowledge of the structure and functions of the 
nervous system ; but they differ in respect to who 
should supply this knowledge. Some of them insist 
that the psychologist 'needs all of the time at his 
disposal for his own science,' that it is the business 
of the physiologist to teach neurology. Certain 
others, while freely granting the theoretical sound- 
ness of this contention, and while freely admitting 
that under ideal conditions the teacher of psychology 



PREFACE V 

could make a course in neurology a prerequisite to 
his own courses, point out, on the other hand, that 
under the present organization of secondary and 
college education the vast majority of college and 
normal school students — probably seventy-five per 
cent on the average — come to psychology with little 
or no knowledge of the nervous system, and that the 
teacher of psychology must either supply at least 
a working basis of neurology, or he must exclude 
from his classes students who lack it. Most psy- 
chologists choose the former course. 

In view of these facts it seemed to the author 
pedagogically desirable to include a brief description 
of the structure and function of the nervous sys- 
tem; further, that this description should begin 
with gross anatomy, and that the limits of the de- 
scription of finer anatomy and physiology should be 
determined by the requirements of the later discus- 
sions of the text. This, at any rate, was the work- 
ing plan of the chapter under review; and, in the 
author's experience in teaching introductory courses 
in psychology, the plan works well. The author 
hopes that teachers who elect to use this text and 
who desire to extend the scope and to vary the direc- 
tion of their physiological and histological teaching, 
may find in the form and matter of the chapter a 
satisfactory basis therefor. 

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the help I have 
received in the preparation of the book. My greatest 
indebtedness, as is evident in nearly every chapter, 
is to the writings of James and Titchener. But I 
have also drawn freely upon the writings of many 



VI PREFACE 

other authors, and I gratefully acknowledge the help 
received from them. 

My colleague, Professor A. E. Davies, has given 
generously of his time to the discussion of the var- 
ious topics of the text and to the careful revision 
of the manuscript and proofs. I am greatly indebted 
to him for his personal help and friendly criticism, 

I am also under obligation to my colleagues, Pro- 
fessors T. H. Haines, G. F. Arps, J. A. Leighton, and 
A. P. Weiss, Instructor in psychology, for their 
criticisms of certain portions of the manuscript, and 
to Mr. Weiss for help with the proofs. 

My best thanks are due also to Mr. Otto Giesen, 
M. A., for drawing a large number of the figures of 
the text. 

Acknowledgments are due to the following 
authors and publishers for permission to use illus- 
trations from their works: Professor E. B. Titch- 
ener and The Macmillan Company, publishers of his 
"Text-Book of Psychology"; Professor C. H. Judd 
and Charles Scribner's Sons, publishers of his 
"Psychology" ; Professor H. H. Donaldson and Pro- 
fessor W. H. Howell, and W. B. Saunders and Com- 
pany, publishers of "The American Text-Book of 
Physiology" and "A Text-Book of Physiology" ; P. 
Blakiston's Son and Company, publishers of 
Morris's "Human Anatomy". 



THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, 

October, 1912. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 

In the revision of this text, many paragraphs and 
sections have been rewritten, a number of new para- 
graphs have been added, two new figures have been 
introduced, and the topics in several of the chapters 
have been rearranged. I hope that these changes 
mark an improvement, especially in respect to clear- 
ness and accuracy of statement, and in the service- 
ableness of the book as a teaching instrument. 

It is a pleasure to acknowledge the debt of grati- 
tude I owe to my friend and colleague, Professor 

A. E. Davies, for his never-failing help and counsel 
in the preparation of the revised text. I am also 
indebted to Professor T. L. Bolton of the University 
of Montana, and to Professor 0. D. Humphrey of 
the New York Training School for Teachers, 
Jamaica, N. Y., for valuable suggestions and 
criticisms, I am also indebted to Professor 
Humphrey for securing the permission of Professor 

B. G. Wilder, of Cornell University, to use figure 
4778, of his article in volume VIII, of "A Reference 
Handbook of the Medical Sciences." 

My thanks are due to my pupils. Miss E. E. 
Courtney and Miss P. C. Salsberry, for help in cor- 
recting the proofs; and to my former pupil, Mr. 
Otto Giesen, for drawing figure 5. 

THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY, 

March, 1914. 

(vii) 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Chapter I. Introduction 1 

Psychology Defined. 
Termihology. 

Typical Divisions of the Field of Psychology 
The Methods of Psychology. 
Points of View in Psychology. 
The Subject Matter of an Introductory 
Course in Psychology. 
References. 

Chapter II. Consciousness and the Nervous System 14 
/ General View of the Nervous System. 

The Brain. 
The Medulla. 
The Pons. 

The Cerebral Peduncles. 
The Cerebellum. 
The Cerebrum. 

The Cerebral Convolutions and Fis- 
sures. 
The Cerebral Lobes and Interlobar Fis- 
sures. 
The Cerebral Cortex. 
The White Matter of the Cerebrum. 
The Three Types of Cortical Areas. 
Localization of the Cerebral Functions. 
The Spinal Cord. 

Functions of the Spinal Cord. 
The Peripheral Nervous System. 
The Cerebro-Spinal Nerves. 
The Cranial Nerves. 
The Spinal Nerves. 
The Sympathetic Nervous System, 
(ix) 



CONTENTS 



Chapter III. 



PAGE 

The Neurone. 

The Chief Groups of Neurones. 
Sensory Neurones and Sense Organs. 
Free Sensory Endings. 
The Encapsulated Sensory Endings. 
The Special Sense-Organs. 
Organs of Taste. 
Organ of Smell. 

Termination of Auditory Nerve- 
Fibres. 
Termination of Optic Nerve-Fibres 
The Motor Neurones and Motor Organs. 
The Associative Neurones. 
References. 

Sensation in General 68 

Definition. 

Sensations as Mental Elements. 

Sensation and Sensory Stimulus 

Sensation and Knowledge of the outside 
World. 

Sensations as the Earliest Forms of Con- 
sciousness. 

Pure Sensation. 

Differentiation of Sensory Qualities. 

The Attributes of Sensations. 

The Classification of Sensations. 
References. 



Chapter IV. Classes of Sensations . . . 
Visual Sensations. 

Classes of Visual Sensations. 

The Color Pyramid. 

Color Mixture. 

Visual After-images. 

Color-Blindness. 

The Color Zones of the Retina. 



82 



CONTENTS XI 

PAGE 

/Auditory Sensations. 

Nature of the Stimulus. 

Classes of Auditory Sensations. 

The Attributes of Tones. 

Classes of Tones. 
Sensations of Smell. 

Organ of Smell. 

Olfactory Stimulus. 

The Relations of Olfactory Sensations. 

Cassification of Olfactory Sensations. 
Sensations of Taste. 

Organs of Taste. 

Classes and Relations of Taste Sensa- 
tions. 
Cutaneous Sensations. 

Sensations of Pressure. 

Sensations of Temperature. 

Sensation of Pain. 
The Kinaesthetic Senses. 

'Touch Blends.' 
Organic Sensations. 
References. 

Chapter V. Perception 116 

Perception Defined. 

Perception and Sensation Compared. 

The Genesis of Perception. 

Variations in Perceptional Stimuli. 

Variations in Perceptions of Particular 

Things. 
Illusions of Perception. 

Glasses of Illusions. 

Equivocal Figures. 
Hallucinations. 
References. 



Xll 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Chapter VI. Mental Images 137 

Percept and Image Compared. 
Image and Idea Compared. 
Type Images. 
Class Images. 

Individual Differences in Mental Imagery. 
Types of Mental Imagery. 
Symbol Imagery. 

Kinds of Verbal Imagery. 
The Attributes of Characteristic Images 
Differ. 
References. 



Chapter VII. Attention 

The Nature of Attention. 
The Conditions of Attention. 
The Motor Concomitants of Attention. 
The Sensory Concomitants of Attention. 
The Degrees of Attention. 
The Range of Attention. 
The Forms of Attention. 
The Popular View of Attention. 
References. 



161 



Chapter VIII. Association . w ..... . 185 

Associative Connections. 
Variations among Associative Complexes. 
Conditions Favorable to the Formation of 
Associative Complexes. 
References. 

Chapter IX. Memory . 198 

Definition. 

The Conditions of Memory. 

Retention. 

The Process of Revival. 
The Sequence of Imaginal and Ideational 

Processes. 



CONTENTS Xlll 

PAGE 

Spontaneous Revival. 
Revival through Similarity. 
. Active and Passive recall Distinguished. 
Memory and Imagery. 
Individual Differences in Memory. 
Cramming. 
Prodigious Memories. 
References. 

Chapter X. Imagination . 228 

Types of Imaginative Activity. 
The Limits of Imagination. 
Passive and Active Imagination. 
The Beginnings of Imagination. 
Individual Differences in Imagination. 
References. 

Chapter XI. Thought and the Thought-Processes . 241 

The General Nature of Thinking. 

The Thought Processes as Functions. 

The Thought Processes. 

Thought as Ideation. 

Thought as Abstraction. 

Thought as Judgment. 

Judgment as Synthesis. 

Judgment of Objective Relations. 

Relation of Ideation and Judgment. 

Judgment and Reasoning. 

Reasoning. 

Explicit Reasoning. 

Reasoned Judgments and Reasoning Dis- 
tinguished. 

Implicit Reasoning. 

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Dis- 
tinguished. 

Thought's Vehicles. 



XIV 



CONTENTS 



Chapter XII. The Thought Processes (continued) 



PAGE 

269 



Comparison: Conditions. 

Discrimination. 

Individual Differences in Discrimination. 
Analysis as a Thought Process. 

The Conditions of Analysis. 
Generalization. 
The Beginnings of Thought. 
References. 



Chapter XIII. The Feelings 



289 



Meaning of the Term Feeling. 
The Number of Kinds of Feeling. 
The Mental Conditions of the Feelings. 
The Neural Correlates of the Feelings. 
Feeling and Habit. 
Feeling and Association. 
Transference of Feeling. 
References. 

Chapter XIV. Emotion 315 

The Distinctive Mark of Emotion. 
The Factors, of Emotion. 
The 'James-Lange Theory' of Emotion. 
The Genesis of Emotional Reactions. 
References. 



Chapter XV. The Sentiments 333 

Meaning of the Term Sentiment. 
Sentiment and Emotion Compared. 
The Intellectual Sentiments. 
The Moral Sentiments. 
The Aesthetic Sentiment. 
References. 



CONTENTS XV 

PAGE 
Chapter XVI. Consciousness and Action . . . 351 

Automatic Movements. 

Reflex Actions. 

Instinct and Instinctive Action: Definition. 

Instinctive and Reflex Action Compared. 

Instinctive and Volitional Action Com- 
pared. 

Instinct and Habit. 

Instinct and Emotion. 

Characteristics of Instincts. 

The Principal Instincts and their Class- 
ification. 

Individualistic Instincts. 
Parental or Racial Instincts. 
Social Instincts. 
Secondary Adaptive Instincts. 
Derived Instincts. 

Habit: Definition. 

Conditions of Habit-Formation. 
Habit and Instinct. 

The Nature of Voluntary Action. 
Deliberation. 
Decision. 

The Consciousness of Effort. 
Conditions of Effort. 

Internal Volitional Activity. 
References. 

Index of Names and Subjects . . 405 

Index of Figures 412 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



CHAPTER I 
INTRODUCTION 

Psychology Defined. — Psychology, the science of 
consciousness, undertakes to describe and to explain 
such things as memories, imaginings, hopes, fears, 
feelings, desires, aversions, impulses, volitions, and 
the like. 

Terminology. — Psychologists use a number of technical 
terms and expressions to designate the subject matter of 
their science, and it is well for the student of psychology 
to become acquainted with them early in his course. 

The terms 'mind' and 'consciousness', in their broadest 
meaning, include all mental processes irrespective both of 
their nature and the conditions of their occurrence. 'Con- 
sciousness' is also used in a narrow sense to mean a single 
mental experience. Thus a memory, an image, an anger, a 
desire, a choice, a pain sensation, a feeling, may each be 
spoken of as a consciousness. 

Expressions which mean the same thing as conscious- 
ness in the narrow sense, are formed by coupling either 
conscious, mental, or psychical, with either 'process', 'phenom- 
enon', 'fact', 'experience', or 'state', as follows: conscious 
process, mental experience, psychical phenomenon, and so 
on. Other equivalents of 'consciousness' may be obtained 
by combining any one of the words — process, phenomenon, 
or fact — with either, 'of mental life', 'of consciousness', of 
psychical life', or 'of mental experience'. Thus we have the 
expressions — process of mental life, phenomenon of psych- 
ical life, fact of mental experience, and so on, used synon- 
ymously with 'consciousness' in its narrower meaning. 

(1) 



2 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Which one of the terms just mentioned shall be used in a 
given case depends upon the writer's convenience, his desire 
for variety of expression, or his individual preference. 

It may be added that the term 'psychosis' was proposed 
by the English scientist, Huxley, as a synonym for 'con- 
scious process', and that it is in high favor with certain 
authors. 

Typical Divisions of the Field of Psychology. — 
The province of psychology is so wide and the in- 
terests of psychologists are so varied that the entire 
field is now divided, for purposes of study, into a 
large number of smaller fields, or departments. 
There is, however, considerable diversity among the 
classifications and subdivisions that have been pro- 
posed. This diversity is due, no doubt, to the fact 
that no single principle of classification has been 
advanced which is broad enough to meet the require- 
ments of psychologists who approach the problem 
from different points of view. Accordingly, current 
classifications reflect and are controlled by the spe- 
cial interests or points of view of the individual psy- 
chologists who make them. 

The typical primary, or fundamental, divisions of 
the field of psychology are: (a) normal and abnor- 
mal, (b) human and animal, (c) social and indi- 
vidual psychology. The first division is based 
upon the fact that the conscious processes of the 
individual members of the various animal species, 
or of particular groups of organisms (such as a 
company of men or a herd of animals) are, as a 
rule, uniform in nature, in mode of activity, in 
manner of development, and in physical conditions. 
When a given mental process, or group of mental 



INTRODUCTION 3 

processes, conforms to this general uniformity, it is 
said to be normal ; when it departs from it, abnormal. 
According to this principle of classification, certain 
psychologists divide the entire field of psychology 
into Normal and Abnormal Psychology. 

Another group of psychologists are interested 
mainly in the differences between the mental life of 
human beings and that of the lower animals, and 
so, in their scheme of classification, make the divi- 
sion of psychology into Human and Animal the 
fundamental one. 

A third class of students are interested most in 
the mental life of human and animal societies, in 
the influence of group life on the mental experiences 
of men and of animals, and in the contrast between 
the mental life of groups of individuals, e. g., in 
societies, crowds, mobs, flocks, herds, and the men- 
tal life of the individual members when they are 
relatively free from social influences. This group 
of interests gives rise to the two great divisions of 
Social, or Collective, and Individual Psychology. 

We have noted three typical primary divisions of 
the field of psychology. The manner in which the 
field may be further subdivided is indicated by the 
following table, which is based upon Titchener's 
Classification:^ 



1 A Text-Book of Psychology^ 1910, § 7 ; also p. 43 ff. 

The divisions and sub-divisions given herein belong to what is 
known as 'pure' psychology in contrast with the field of 'applied' 
psychology, meaning by the latter the applications of the facts 
and laws of pure psychology to the practical problems of social 
control — education, medicine, business, legal procedure, politics — 
in short, to those arts which undertake to influence the actions of 
human beings. 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




INTRODUCTION . 5 

The Methods of Psychology. — Psychology employs 
two methods of studying consciousness; the direct 
and the indirect. By the direct method is meant the 
examination of our own mental experiences. Thus, 
when we compare our images of given colors, or the 
intensity of two sound sensations, when we examine 
carefully our motives for a given line of conduct, 
when we observe that we attend to one class of 
objects and not to another, we are studying con- 
sciousness by the direct method. By this method 
the student may answer, at least roughly, such ques- 
tions as : 

1. How do I know that the sound which I hear is the 
whistle of a locomotive? 

2. How do I set about recalling a forgotten name? 

3. How do my experiences of anger differ from my 
fears ? 

4. Why is it so easy for me to attend to some things 
and so difficult to attend to others? 

5. Why does the sight of the letter A recall its name? 

6. Can I see in my mind's eye my break-fast table? 
Are its various features distinct or indistinct, clear or dim, 
bright or dull? 

7. What are my sense-experiences in a given five-min- 
ute period? 

The indirect method is employed when we study 
consciousnesses through their signs or products. For 
example, we judge from certain signs or expressions 
that a man is angry, or frightened, or grieved ; that 
a child wishes a given article or does not wish it; 
that one dog is friendly or hostile toward another; 
that a person is experiencing delusions of persecu- 
tion; that a crowd of people have lost their wits; 



6 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

and from the ceremonies, rituals and customs of 
peoples, savage and civilized, we infer that they 
have certain beliefs, fears, hopes, ideals and life 
purposes. 

We cannot draw a sharp distinction between the 
signs of conscious processes and the products of 
those processes. But, speaking broadly, the term 
"mental production" means something which con- 
sciousnesses produce through their relation to the 
muscles of the body, particularly those of the hands 
and arms, and those of the organs of speech. For 
example, buildings of all kinds, dwellings, school- 
houses, business blocks, chapels, churches, temples 
are mental products in this sense, and so give us 
insight into the minds of their designers and build- 
ers. Works of art — music, painting, sculpture, 
poetry, oratory — institutions, customs, laws, lan- 
guages, either of individuals or of groups of indi- 
viduals, are mental creations and so are revelations, 
in some measure, of the nature of the mental life of 
their creators. The text-books the student is using, 
the lectures he is hearing from day to day, the chem- 
ical formulae, the literary or historical interpreta- 
tions, the scientific facts or laws and their applica- 
tions, are mental products, and in so far as the stu- 
dent masters them and in so far as he is able to 
think of them as mental productions, he is gaining 
an insight into the nature of the mental activities 
of human beings. 

It may be observed next that the field in which 
the direct method is employed is comparatively 
small, being limited to the study of the normal, 



INTRODUCTION 7 

human, civilized adult mind. The animal mind, the 
undeveloped mind, the collective mind, and, usually, 
the abnormal mind, are studied by the indirect 
method, i. e., by interpreting their signs and prod- 
ucts. 

Although the direct method of studying mental 
phenomena is relatively limited in the range of its 
application, it is the primary and the most impor- 
tant method of gaining knowledge concerning such 
phenomena. Since its results are more reliable than 
those obtained by the indirect method — we know 
our own mental life better than we can know that 
of others — and since we interpret the signs of the 
conscious processes of others by reference to our 
knowledge of the relationship between our own con- 
scious states and their expression, the direct method 
is sometimes described as the psychological method 
par excellence. This fact, as we shall see in a later 
paragraph, has an important bearing upon the ques- 
tion of where, with what department, one's study 
of psychology should begin. 

Points of View in Psychology. — The study of con- 
sciousness may be approached from any one of five 
points of view. According to one — the 'structural', 
as it is called — conscious processes are either men- 
tal elements, so-called, or are compounds of such 
elements. Accordingly, from this point of view, the 
psychologist undertakes to determine the exact num- 
ber of the elementary mental processes, to describe 
and to explain them; he also undertakes the anal- 
ysis of complex mental experiences, e. g., percep- 
tions, memories, emotions, choices, in order to deter- 



8 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mine the number, character, and order of arrange- 
ment of their constituent parts. 

But the enumeration, description, and explanation 
of the elementary mental processes and the analysis 
of complex mental states into their components is 
only one part of the undertaking from the structural 
point of view. It involves still further the descrip- 
tion and the explanation of the ways in which given 
conscious elements combine so as to form complex 
conscious experiences, e. g., perceptions, imagina- 
tions, emotions, volitions, and so on. The aim in 
this case is to answer such questions as : What are 
the factors and what the conditions of their combi- 
nation in one's perception of a given landscape, or 
in one's memory of a ball game? What elements 
combine and in what order and in what proportions 
to make up the emotions of fear or anger? The 
enumeration, description, and explanation of the 
elements of consciousness and the exposition of the 
laws of their combination thus constitute the two 
principal psychological problems from the structural 
point of view. 

The term 'analysis', which plays so large a part in the 
literature of structural psychology, was borrowed very likely 
from chemistry. But it should be carefully noted that the 
chemist and psychologist do not use the term in precisely 
the same sense. The chemist actually analyzes many chem- 
ical compounds into their elements, so that each element ex- 
ists apart and is studied as a thing by itself. The 'analysis' 
of the psychologist, on the other hand, is more like that of 
the student of elementary botany, who, without in the least 
disturbing the structure of the flower, observes that it is 
composed of sepals, petals, stamen, or pistil. The analysis 



INTRODUCTION 9 

which the psychologist makes of a mental experience is not 
a literal picking the experience to pieces; it is rather an 
enumeration of its several features, it is attending now to 
one part or aspect, now to another. 

From the first point of view, interest centers in 
the structure or composition of consciousness, in 
the nature of the conscious elements, and the laws 
of their combination. From a second point of view, 
we may study mental functions or mental activities. 
In this case, the primary aim is (1) to enumerate, 
to describe and classify the various forms of mental 
activity; (2) to set forth the laws of their appear- 
ance; and (3) to give an account of their relations 
to one another. This point of view, when taken 
broadly, may include also an account of the part 
which mental processes play in the lives of indi- 
viduals or in the activities of groups of individuals. 

'Functional psychology', as this way of studying our 
mental life is usually called, undertakes to furnish answers 
to such questions as — how does memory differ from im- 
agination? how do perceptions differ from images? why 
do we remember certain of the events of our past lives and 
forget others? why do the words, "the first President of the 
United States" suggest 'Washington'? why do some objects 
attract our attention while others are overlooked? how do 
we learn to spell, to repeat conjugations and to add columns 
of figures? how do such instincts as curiosity, pugnacity and 
manipulation affect their possessor's conduct? 

In the third place, we may study mental phenom- 
ena from the genetic point of view. In this case 
we may study either the growth and development 
of the mental functions and capacities of individ- 
uals (human or animal) or we may be concerned 



10 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

with the larger problems of the evolution of mind 
in the human race or in the animal series. In the 
one case, an effort is made to trace the order of 
appearance of the various mental functions of the 
individual, e. g., seeing, hearing, recognizing, re- 
membering, imagining, judging, willing, and so on, 
and to determine the facts and laws of their devel- 
opment. In the second case, we are concerned with 
the mental life of man and of the lower animals at 
different levels of development, and an effort is 
made to determine what mental functions and 
capacities appear at the different stages of biolog- 
ical evolution, in what order they make their appear- 
ance, and under what conditions. These various 
interests in the phenomena of the growth and the 
development of mental functions are grouped under 
the title — Genetic Psychology. 

From a fourth point of view, we may inquire con- 
cerning the general utility of consciousness, the 
purposes which it serves in the individual life or in 
the life of the race; or more particularly, we may 
ask how a given mental experience helps or hinders 
its possessor in getting along in the world. For 
example, what is the biological value of seeing and 
hearing? what is the function of memory in adapt- 
ing an organism to its environment? what purposes 
do the feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness 
serve? or of what use, from the point of view of 
an individual's welfare, are his various emotional 
and instinctive responses? The science which treats 
of the purposes which consciousness serves in the 



INTRODUCTION 11 

struggle for existence is called Biological, or Teleo- 
logical, Psychology. 

In the fifth place, we may study consciousness 
from the point of view of the two closely related 
sciences of Xsychophysics and Physiological Psy- 
chology. From the standpoint of the former, we 
inquire concerning the relationship between our 
mental experiences, especially our sensations, and 
the given physical processes with which they are 
correlated. From the point of view of Physiological 
Psychology, attention centers on the structure and 
functions of the sense-organs, and upon those parts 
and activities of the nervous system which sub- 
serve, in a special way, our mental life. 

Summary. — Structural Psychology is the science 
of the structure of consciousness and conscious 
processes; Functional Psychology is the science of 
mental activities ; Genetic Psychology concerns itself 
with the phenomena of mental development and 
evolution; Biological Psychology describes the uses 
which mental processes serve in adapting an organ- 
ism or group of organisms to its environment. 
Psychophysics and Physiological Psychology study 
consciousness in relation to its physical and physio- 
logical conditions and concomitants. 

The Subject-matter of an Introductory Course in 
Psychology. — A survey of the scope of psychology, 
even such as is made in the preceding pages, makes 
it clear that we cannot hope to cover the entire field 
in an introductory course; we must select some one 
department or aspect of the entire subject. It will 
be granted further that we should begin with those 



12 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

topics that are truly introductory and fundamental 
to our later psychological studies. 

Perhaps, because of his practical interests or be- 
cause of his interest in the strange and marvelou.'^ 
aspects of mental life, the student would prefer to 
begin at once with the practical and curious ques- 
tions, as, for example: What makes us dream? 
What is hypnotism? How can one improve his 
memory? Do animals reason? What is the psy- 
chology of successful advertising? What causes de- 
lusions of grandeur in certain forms of insanity? 
and so on. Now these, and hundreds of kindred 
questions, are legitimate enough in their place, but 
their place, as experience has abundantly proved, is 
not in an introductory survey, except as they arise 
incidentally in the pursuit of the main business of 
such a course. 

What, then, should be the nature of a first course 
in psychology? The answer which is usually given 
to this question is: a first course in psychology 
should be General Psychology ; and by General Psy- 
chology is meant a study of the normal, adult human 
consciousness with reference: (1) to its structure, 
or internal constitution; (2) to its modes of activity; 
(3) to its physical conditions or concomitants. Inci- 
dental to these three ways of regarding its subject 
matter, an introductory course may properly in- 
clude, so far as they have been scientifically deter- 
mined, the facts and laws relative to the origin and 
development of mental functions and capacities in 
the individual and in the race, and also an account 



INTRODUCTION 13 

of the purposes or uses which mental processes 
serve in the general life activities of an organism or 
of a group of organisms. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, 4th Edition, 1908, Ch. I. 
Judd: Psychology, 1907, Ch. I. 
Stout: A Manual of Psychology, 1899, Chs. I, II. 
Titchener: a Text-Book of Psychology, 1910, §§1-9. 
Yerkes: Introduction to Psychology, 1911, Part 1. 



CHAPTER II 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 

Everyday observation teaches that the course of 
our mental life bears a very close relationship to 
the bodily organism and the various processes 
which constitute its life. Thus, it is well known 
that our sense experiences — seeing, hearing, tast- 
ing, smelling, for example — depend upon the activ- 
ities of certain sense organs ; that feelings of pleas- 
antness and unpleasantness are often connected 
with definite bodily changes; that the physiological 
effects of certain substances like alcohol, opium, 
tobacco, coffee and tea, are frequently accompanied 
by marked changes in consciousness; finally, that 
certain bodily diseases often produce characteristic 
changes in the mental life of the patient. Familiar 
observations of this character underlie the common 
belief that many of the phenomena of consciousness 
are dependent upon changes in the bodily organism. 
There are, on the other hand, many bodily changes 
which common opinion attributes to the influence of 
the mind. Thus the mind is supposed to be able to 
control freely the gross movements of the body, to 
cause it to move as a whole or to remain at rest, to 
move certain parts or to keep them quiet, to look or 
to turn away, to listen or to turn a deaf ear. Again, 
common observation seems to teach that the con- 
scious processes known as emotions, e. g., fear, 

(14) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 15 

grief, anger, joy, cause conspicuous bodily disturb- 
ances, and that mental agitation or depression, as 
in the manias and melancholias, has a direct effect 
on the bodily processes, particularly those of respi- 
ration, circulation, and digestion. 

This body of knowledge or belief concerning the 
relation of our mental life to its physical basis has 
been the common property of thinking men for a 
very long time, certainly from the time of the ear- 
liest Hebrew and Greek writers. It is, however, 
only in the recent centuries that an effort has been 
made to show in detail the nature of this connection, 
to clear up obscurities, to weed out superstition and 
error, and to ground theory on verified facts ; and it 
is generally conceded that the results of this effort 
constitute one of the most notable achievements of 
modern scientific endeavor. It is, however, no part 
of our present undertaking to trace even in outline 
the history of opinion in reference to the relation- 
ship between the mind and the body. We shall come 
at once to the modern teaching on this subject, which 
is that our mental life is intimately related to, and 
dependent upon, ichanges in the nervous system. 
This doctrine is usually summed up in the law of 
psycho-neural correlation, namely, that every men- 
tal process is accompanied by a neural process, a 
change in the nervous system; or, to use a phrase 
coined by Huxley — every psychosis has its neurosis. 
This law, which is now supported by a mass of evi- 
dence so convincing that there is little likelihood that 
it will require revision in any important respect, 




Fig. 1. Diagram showing tt>e general arrangement of tlie human 
nervous system. (After Martin, modifiecl.) 

(16) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 17 

forms the chief stone of the corner of the modern 
theory of the physical basis of mental life. 

General View of the Nervous System, — The re- 
mainder of this chapter will consist mainly of the 
study of a carefully selected series of figures and 
drawings illustrative of those features of the struc- 
ture and function of the nervous system which are 
of interest in an introductory course in psychology. 
The chief purpose of the descriptive matter of the 
text is to aid the student in his examination and 
understanding of the figures.^ The latter fall into 
three classes: (1) those intended to give a view of 
the general arrangement of the human nervous sys- 
tem and some idea of the gross anatomy of its prin- 
cipal parts ; (2) a series of figures which relate to its 
minute anatomy, or finer structure; (3) a third 
series is intended to illustrate the simpler functions 
and activities of the nervous system. 

Figure 1 gives some idea of the general arrange- 
ment of the principal parts of the nervous system, 
three features of which may be noted in the figure : 
(1) the brain enclosed within the cranium; (2) the 
spinal cord in the spinal column; (3) the large nerve 
trunks leading from the brain and spinal cord to all 
parts of the body. By the aid of the microscope the 
anatomist is enabled to follow the divisions of the 
nerves into smaller and smaller branches, even down 
to the nerve fibers of which the nerves are composed, 
and even to the bifurcations of the nerve fibers be- 



1 Note. In order to avoid confusing details the figures fiave 
been, in most cases, greatly simplified. 




verve 

Fig. 2. Ventral aspect of the central nervous system. (After 

Morris. ) 

(18) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 19 

fore they terminate in the sense-organs, glands, 
muscles, tendons, and other structures. In reference 
to the intimacy of the connection of all the parts of 
the human nervous system and the extensiveness of 
its distribution, Hardesty writes : "Could all the 
other tissues of the body be dissolved away, still 
there would be left in gossamer its form and pro- 
portions — a phantom of the body composed entirely 
of nerves." 

Anatomists usually refer to the nervous system 
as consisting of two main divisions: (1) The cen- 
tral nervous system (the cerebro-spinal axis), com- 
posed of (a) the brain, and (b) the spinal cord; 
(2) the peripheral nervous system, composed of (a) 
the cerebro-spinal nerves, and (b) the sympathetic 
nervous system. The student should remember, 
however, that this division is only for convenience 
in description, and that in fact all parts of the ner- 
vous system are intimately related functionally. 
Figure 2 shows (a) the central nervous system 
(brain and spinal cord) ; (b) portions of the cere- 
bro-spinal nerves originating in the brain and spinal 
cord, and (c) one of the ganglionated cords of the 
sympathetic system attached (on the left side as 
one looks at the figure) to the spinal nerves. The 
brain is lifted up and backward from its usual hori- 
zontal position, 

The Brain, — The brain is that part of the central 
nervous system which lies within the skull, or, more 
exactly, it is that portion of the cerebro-spinal axis 
which lies in front of or above the level of the first 
pair of spinal nerves. We have seen that the spinal 



20 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



cord and the parts composing the brain are struc- 
turally continuous. The line separating them is 
therefore chosen somewhat arbitrarily. Figure 3, 
a drawing of the brain as seen from below, is in- 



cerebral 
peduncle. 



hypo- 
glossal 
nerve. 



medulla. 



cerebellum. 




olfac. bulb, 
olfac. tract, 
op. nerve, cut 
optic 

commissure, 
op. tract, 
oculo-motor 
nerve. 

trochlear n. 

trigeminal 

nerve. 

abducent n. 
facial nerve, 
auditory n. 
g'losso-phar. 
nerve, 
pneumo- 
gastric n. 
part spinal 
accessory n. 



pyramidal 
decussation. 

pt. sDinal 
accessory. 



occipital 
lobe. 



spinal 
cord. 



Fig. 3. Inferior aspect of Brain, showing superficial origins of 
all the cranial nerves except the trochlear. 



tended to show the relative positions of the five 
parts composing it, namely, the medulla, the pons, 
the cerebral peduncles (crura cerebri), the cerebel- 
lum, and the cerebrum. The first three — the me- 



. CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 21 

dulia, pons, and cerebral peduncles— together make 
up the brain-stem, Avhich is primarily a great path- 
way between the cerebrum, and cerebellum., and be- 
tween these tw^o parts and the spinal cord. The 
two latter, the cerebrum and the cerebellum, con- 
tain the centers correlated with sensation, motor 
excitation, and the higher mental processes. We 
may consider briefly the chief points of structure 
and function of each of the five divisions of the 
brain just named. 

The Medulla. — Superficially regarded, the medulla 
appears to be a continuation of the spinal cord and 
extends from the foramen magnum, the opening at 
the base of the skull, to the lov/er margin of the pons 
above, a distance of about one inch. (See Fig. 3.) 
The medulla is of interest mainly because it is the 
center of control of the organs of circulation and 
respiration and because in it occurs the decussation 
of pyramids — strands of nerve fibers, whereby the 
principal motor fibers, in their passage from the 
cortex of the cerebral hemispheres to the spinal cord, 
suddenly cross to the opposite side of the medulla 
and enter the spinal cord on the opposite side from 
which they arose in the cerebrum. 

The Pons. — The pons Varolii appears as a great 
prominence, quadrilateral in shape when viewed 
from in front, lying between the medulla below and 
the cerebral peduncles above, and between the two 
parts of the cerebellum, and is sometimes called the 
bridge of the brain. (See Fig. 3.) Its chief func- 
tions appear to be to connect the two parts of the 
cerebellum with each other, to connect the cerebel- 



22 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

lum with the brain-stem, and to form a pathway 
between the cerebellum and the cerebrum. 

Cerebral Peduncles. — The cerebral peduncles, the 
principal divisions of the mid-brain, appear, when 
the brain is viewed from below, to consist of two 
thickish stalks which emerge from the upper border 
of the pons and pass each to one side and upward 
to enter the cerebral hemispheres. (See Fig. 3.) 
The peduncles consist of sensory and motor fibers 
running between the cortex of the cerebrum and the 
lower parts of the brain — the cerebellum and pons — 
and the spinal cord. Their chief function, accord- 
ingly, is to serve as a pathway between these parts 
of the central system. 

The Cerebellum. — The cerebellum, or "little 
brain" or "hind brain," as it is sometimes called 
(Fig. 3) , lies behind the pons and medulla and below 
the posterior portion of the cerebrum, from which 
it is separated by a thick layer of the dura mater, 
the tough, fibrous covering of the brain. The two 
hemispheres of the cerebellum are connected with 
the medulla, the pons, and the mid-brain, and so in- 
directly with the cerebrum and spinal cord by three 
bands of nerve fibers, known as the inferior, middle, 
and superior peduncles. 

Physiologists are not agreed as to the function or 
functions of the cerebellum ; but it is likely, accord- 
ing to Howell, that by virtue of a nervous mechan- 
ism which, on the afferent (sensory) side, is con- 
nected with the sensory nerves leading from the 
vestibule of the ear, the muscles, joints, and tendons, 
and which, on the efferent (motor) side, is in direct 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 23 



connection with the motor areas of the brain as 
well as the motor centers in the spinal cord, "the 
cerebellum is a central organ for co-ordination of 
voluntary movements, particularly the more com- 
plex movements necessary in equilibrium and loco- 
motion."^ 




Pig. 4. 



Superior aspect of cerebral hemispheres, 
tudinal fissure. 



L. F., longi- 



The Cerebrum. — The cerebrum, the largest and, 
psychologically, by far the most important part of 
the central nervous system, consists of the two cere- 
bral hemispheres, which are connected at the base 



1 A Text-Book of Physiology, 1909, p. 237 f. 



24 ELEMENTS OP PSYCHOLOGY 

by a white band of nervous matter known as the 
corpus callosum, but are separated in front, on top, 
and at the rear by the deep longitudinal fissure. 
(L. F. Figure 4.) 

The structural features of the cerebral hemi- 
spheres of most interest to psychology are: (1) the 
cerebral convolutions and fissures; (2) the cerebral 
lobes and interlobar fissures; (3) the outside layer 
of cell-bodies and cell processes, i. e., the nerve cells 
of the cerebral cortex; (4) the white central mass 
of the hemispheres composed of nerve fibers which 
connect the difl'erent parts of the cortex, and the 
cortex with other parts of the central nervous sys- 
tem. These structural features will be considered 
in the order named. 

The Cerebral Convolutions and Fissures. — Super- 
ficially viewed, the most conspicuous feature of the 
surface of each hemisphere is its division into nu- 
merous folds or elevations — the cerebral convolu- 
tions, or gyri — and fissures, or sulci, which separ- 
ate the convolutions from one another. A number 
of the more prominent convolutions of the lateral 
aspect of the left hemisphere are indicated on Fig. 
5, p. 25. The figure also shows the location of the 
Sylvian and the Rolandic fissures. 

The Cerebral Lobes and Interlobar Fissures. — 
For the purpose of description, brain anatomists 
divide the surface of each hemisphere into more or 
less definite areas known as lobes, the boundaries of 
the lobes being marked roughly by the more con- 
spicuous cerebral fissures. The locations of the 
lobes and the interlobar fissures are indicated with 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 25 

sufficient exactness by the accompanying figures 
(3, 4, 5, 6), which give respectively the inferior and 
the superior aspects of the brain, and the lateral 
and mesial (inner) aspects of the left hemisphere. 

The interlobar fissures are: (1) The Sylvian fis- 
sure, seen on the lateral side of the hemisphere 
(Fig. 5), and consisting of the stem, an anterior 
horizontal branch, an anterior ascending branch, 




Fig. 5. Lateral view of left cerebral hemisphere. R. 
Rolandic fissure. C After Wilder, modified) 



R. R. 



and the conspicuous posterior branch; (2) the Ro- 
landic, or central fissure (R. R. R., Fig. 5), which 
begins slightly above and in front of the anterior 
end of the posterior branch of the Sylvian fissure, 
extends obliquely upward and slightly backward, 
and passes over the upper border of the hemisphere 
and downward for a short distance on its mesial 
surface. The Rolandic fissure forms a definite 



26 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



boundary on the lateral surface between the frontal 
and parietal lobes; (3) the parieto-occipital fissure 
(Fig. 6) belongs chiefly to the inner (mesial) sur- 
face of the hemispheres, and separates the mesial 
surfaces of the parietal and occipital lobes; (4) the 
collateral fissure (not represented in the accompany- 
ing figures) separates the mesial surface of the 
temporal lobe from the limbic lobe; (5) the calloso- 




FiG. 6. 



Mesial aspect of left cerebral hemisphere, 
marginal fissure. 



C. M. Calloso- 



marginal fissure (c. m. Fig. 6), a clearly marked 
sulcus on the mesial surface of the hemisphere, 
begins below the fore-end of the corpus callosum, 
sweeps upward and around the end of the callosum, 
arches backward following the curve of the callo- 
sum almost its entire length, then turns upward 
to the upper border of the mesial surface of the 
hemisphere; (6) the fissure of Reil, which partly 
separates the island of Reil from the frontal, parie- 
tal, and limbic lobes. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 27 

The lobes of the cerebrum are: (1) the frontal; 
(2) the parietal; (3) the temporal; (4) the occi- 
pital; (5) the limbic; (6) the insula (island of 
Reil.) 

The frontal lobe is the largest of the six named, 
and includes about one-third of each hemisphere. 
The lateral surface boundaries of the frontal lobe 
are: (1) The Rolandic fissure at the rear (R. R. 
R., Fig. 5), which separates it from the parietal 
lobe, and (2) the anterior branch of the Sylvian 
fissure (Fig. 5), which divides it from the temporal 
lobe. On the mesial surface the vertical limb of 
the calloso-marginal fissure forms the rear boundary 
line of the frontal lobe (see Fig. 6) . On the inferior 
surface of the hemisphere the frontal lobe is separ- 
ated from the temporal lobe by the transverse stem 
of the Sylvian fissure. 

The parietal lobe has two surfaces, a lateral and 
a mesial. The boundaries of the lateral surface are : 
(1) an imaginary line dividing the lateral and the 
mesial surfaces of the hemisphere; (2) the Rolandic 
fissure in front; (3) an imaginary line drawn from 
the point at which the parieto-occipital fissure passes 
from the mesial to the external surface of the hemi- 
sphere (see Fig. 6) to the preoccipital notch, near 
the posterior end of the Sylvian fissure; (4) the 
posterior branch of the Sylvian fissure, forming the 
lower boundary of the parietal lobe. The bound- 
aries of the mesial surface of the parietal lobe are: 
the vertical limb of the calloso-marginal fissure in 
front, the calloso-marginal fissure below, the parieto- 
occipital fissure at the rear, and above, the upper 
edge of the mesial surface of the hemisphere. 



28 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The occipital lobe has three surfaces, a lateral, a 
mesial and an inferior, the locations of which are 
indicated roughly in Figs, 4, 5 and 6. 

The temporal lobe is separated on the lateral sur- 
face of the hemisphere from the frontal lobe by the 
deep cleft or stem of the Sylvian fissure; from the 
parietal lobe by the posterior limb of the Sylvian 
fissure and an imaginary extension of the latter. 
(See Fig. 5.) On the mesial surface the collateral 
fissure divides the temporal and limbic lobes. The 
posterior boundary of the temporal lobe, the line 
separating it from the occipital lobe, is formed by 
the extension backward and mesialward of the 
imaginary line which separates the parietal and occi- 
pital lobes. 

The limbic lobe (Fig. 6, p. 26) is on the mesial 
and inferior surfaces of the hemispheres, and in- 
cludes two principal convolutions, or gyri, the cal- 
losal and the hippocampal. The former lies along 
the upper surface of the corpus callosum, curves 
downward round the rear end of the corpus callosum 
and narrows into a convolution called the isthmus. 
The hippocampal gyrus curves forward from the 
isthmus toward the apex of the temporal lobe.^ 

The insula, or island of Reil, is a triangular area 
of the cerebral cortex concealed within the Sylvian 
fissure by the over-hanging folds of the frontal, 
temporal and parietal lobes. 

The Cerebral Cortex. — The cortex, the chief organ 
of consciousness, forms the outer layer of each of 
the cerebral hemispheres. It is grayish in appear- 



Ptersol. Hiiman Anatomy, vol. II, p. 1150 f. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 29 

ance, and averages about S mm. in thickness. Under 
the microscope, the cortex is seen to be composed of 
fairly well-marked layers of nerve-cells or "neu- 
rones," consisting of cell-bodies and nerve-fibers, 
together with the neuroglia, or supporting tissue. 

The cell-bodies. ■ — The accompanying figure (p. 
30, Fig. 7) represents a section of the cortex, cut 
perpendicular to the surface of the convolution, 
shov/ing the distribution of the cell-bodies of the 
neurones. The order of the layers, beginning with 
the outer one, is: (1) The stratum zonale; (2) the 
layer of small pyramidal cells; (3) the layer of 
large pyramidal cells; (4) the polymorphic cells. 

The functions of the cell-bodies are: (1) to re- 
ceive nerve impulses; (2) to distribute the impulses 
thus received to other parts of the brain. 

The nerve-fibers of the cortex may be arranged 
into five groups: (1) The bundles of radial fibers 
composed of efferent (outgoing) and afferent (in- 
coming) fibers, the former consisting largely of 
axones of the pyramidal and polymorphic cells; the 
latter, of fibers derived from cells located in regions 
of the brain remote from the cortical areas in which 
the fibers terminate; (2) the interradial felt-work 
of fibers, consisting chiefly of lateral and collateral 
cell processes, and occupying the spaces between the 
radial bundles; (3) the outer stripe of Baillarger 
containing a highly intricate layer of processes and 
collaterals from the large pyramidal cells; (4) the 
supra-radial felt-work of Edinger, a second layer 
of finely interlaced nerve processes and collaterals; 



80 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




Pla. 



S-"^*-^-!' stratum 
:?i zonale. 



small 

pyramidal 

ccjIIs 



large 
pyramidal 

ceils. 



polymorphic 
cells. 



Pig. 7. Section through the cerebral cortex. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 31 

(5) the tangential fibers, a layer of innumerable 
delicate fibrils which run horizontally and parallel 
to the surface of the cortex. The layer of tangen- 
tial fibers consists in part of the long processes and 
collaterals of the cells in the stratum zonale, but 
chiefly of the terminal branches of the dendritic 
processes of the pyramidal and polymorphic cells 
and the fine terminal filaments of fibers which spring 
from the lower brain regions. 

The White Matter of the Cerebrum. — Just beneath 
the layer of polymorphic cells (Fig. 7) lies the white 
matter of the hemisphere. This consists of bundles 
of nerve fibers, their supporting tissues, and a small 
number of minute blood vessels. The fibers, classi- 
fied according to the relation which they bear to the 
cortex, are: (1) The projection fibers; (2) the asso- 
ciation fibers, and (3) the commissural fibers. 

The projection fibers (A, B, C, D, and E, of the 
accompanying figure 8, p. 32) connect the cerebral 
cortex with the mid-brain, the pons, the medulla, 
and the spinal cord, and their function is to carry 
outgoing nerve impulses to these portions of the cen- 
tral nervous system (the mid-brain, pons, medulla, 
and spinal cord) and to carry incoming impulses 
from these organs — the pons, medulla and so on — 
to the cortex. 

Perhaps it will aid the student in forming an idea of 
the arrangement of the bands of projection fibers to liken 
the hemisphere to the half of a goose-egg, flattened on the 
under side, to represent the inferior surface of the hemis- 
phere. Further, we may liken the shell of the eg^ to the 



32 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



protecting parts of the cerebrum, the thin membrane just 
beneath the shell to the cerebral cortex, and the projection 
fibers to fine threads running fi'om the various portions of 
the thin membrane to a point a little to the rear of the 
center of the lower border of the inner flat surface. 




Fig. 8. Schema of the projection fibers of the cerebrum and of 
the peduncles of the cerebellum ; lateral view of the internal 
capsule : Aj Tract from the frontal gyri to the pons nuclei, 
and so to the cerebellum (frontal cerebro-cortico-pontal tract) ; 
B^ the motor (pyramidal) tract; C, the sensory (lemniscus) 
tract ; D^ the visual tract ; Ej the auditory tract ; F, the 
fibers of the superior peduncle of the cerebellum ; Oj fibers 
of the middle peduncle uniting with A in the pons ; H_, fibers 
of the inferior peduncle of the cerebellum ; J, fibers between 
the auditory nucleus and the inferior colliculus ; K, motor 
(pyramidal) decussation in the bulb; Vt, fourth ventricle. The 
numerals refer to the cranial nerves, — (Modified from ^tarr 
by Howell.) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 33 

The association fibers (Fig. 9) connect different 
parts of the cortical areas of the same hemisphere. 
They are classed as either short or long association 
bundles. The short bundles, marked A in the figure, 
curve around the bottoms of the fissures and con- 




FiG. 9. Lateral view of a human hemisphere, showing the bundles 
of association fibers {Starr) : A, A, Between adjacent gyri ; 
B, between frontal and occipital areas ; C, between frontal and 
temporal areas, cingulum ; D, between frontal and temporal 
areas, fasciculus uncinatus ; E, between occipital and temporal 
areas, fasciculus longitudinalis inferior ; C.N, caudate nucleus ; 
O.T, thalamus. — {Howell.) 



nect, as a rule, adjacent convolutions; the long asso- 
ciation fibers, marked B, C, D, E, in the figure, con- 
nect remote regions of the cortex. The functions 
of the association fibers are to distribute impulses 
brought to the cortex by the afferent (incoming) 



34 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




Fig. 10. Diagram showing fibres con- 
necting the two cerebral hemispheres. 
(The anterior commissure is not rep- 
resented in the figure.) 



projection fibers, and to co-ordinate the activities of 
the different cortical areas. 

The commissural fibers (Fig. 10) serve to con- 
nect the cortex of 
one hemisphere 
with that of the 
other. As may be 
seen from the fig- 
ure, the commissural 
fibers, as they cross 
the line between 
the hemispheres, 
are collected into 
three bands known 
as commissures or 
bridges: (1) the 
corpus callosum, the chief bridge; (2) the anterior 
commissure, connecting the olfactory bulbs and the 
temporal lobes of the two hemispheres; (3) the 
hippocampal commissure, connecting the hippocam- 
pal gyri of the two hemispheres. (Only the first 
and third commissures are represented in the figure. 
The Three Types of Cortical Areas. — It is possible 
to describe at least three types of cortical functional 
areas, and, in part, to localize them. The three types 
of areas are : ( 1 ) motor, which is directly concerned 
in the stimulation and control of the voluntary mus- 
cles; (2) the sensory, the areas in which sensory 
paths from the sense-organs terminate; and (3) the 
association areas whose function is to recombine 
and redistribute the impulses received in the sen- 
sory areas. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 35 

The Motor Cortical Areas in Man. — Until compar- 
atively recently the motor zone was thought to 
occupy the pre-central and post-central convolutions 
on each side of the Rolandic fissure, and probably 
also the immediately adjacent areas. But at pres- 
ent, "the trend of opinion," as Taylor says, "is in 
favor of the view that the motor region is entirely 
or almost entirely in front of the central fissure of 
Rolando," (as represented in Figure 5, p. 25) and 
extending over the upper margin of the hemisphere 
on its mesial surface for a short distance. In the 
lower part of the motor zone are found the motor 
centres for the face, neck, tongue, and mouth; in 
the central part, centers for the arm (shoulder, 
elbow, wrist, fingers, and thumb) ; in the upper part 
of the zone are the centers for the leg (hip, knee, 
ankle, toes). 

The Sensory Cortical Centers in Man most defi- 
nitely located are: (1) the somsesthetic, or bodily 
sense, area; (2) the center for vision, and (3) the 
auditory center. The bodily sense (somsesthetic) 
area — that is, the region correlated with the cuta- 
neous sensations of pressure, pain, cold, and warmth, 
with the kinsesthetic sensations, muscular, tendin- 
ous, and articular, and possibly with other organic 
sensations — lies in the post-central convolution and 
in the adjoining parietal convolutions. (See Figure 
5, p. 25.) The general area for vision is located in 
the two occipital lobes. See Figure 5 for location 
of the visual area in left hemisphere. The auditory 
area probably lies mainly in the upper temporal con- 
volution and in the transverse convolutions running 



36 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

into the Sylvian fissure. (See Figure 5 for probable 
location of the auditory center of the left hemi- 
sphere). "It is very likely," according to Taylor, 
"that the (auditory) center of each side is connected 
with both auditory nerves, so that a paralysis of one 
side by a unilateral lesion of one side may be com- 
pensated for by the center of the opposite side."^ 
The cortical center for smell is believed to be in the 
front part of the hippocampal convolution (Fig. 6, 
p. 26) ; and it is often asserted that the center for 
taste is also in this convolution, posterior to the area 
for smell. But, as Howell remarks, "practically 
nothing definite is known concerning the central 
paths and cortical termination of the taste fibers." 
Cortical Association Areas. — From an inspection 
of the accompanying figures and drawings of the 
hemispheres it will be seen that the sensory and 
motor areas of the cortex occupy only a small por- 
tion of the entire cortical area. The remaining por- 
tion is occupied by 'the association areas', as they 
have been designated by Flechsig. According to 
Flechsig, there are four of these areas: (1) the 
frontal, which lies in front of the motor areas, and 
occupies a large part of the frontal lobe; (2) the 
median, or insular, the cortex of the island of Reil ; 
(3) the parietal, which lies posterior to the bodily 
sense area, and extends backward to the occipital 
lobe; and (4) the temporal occupying, as the name 
suggests, certain portions of the temporal lobe. 



1 PiERSOL, Human Anatomy, vol. II, p. 1213. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 37 

Function of the Association Areas. — Knowledge 
concerning the function of the association areas of 
the human brain is derived principally from the 
study of the relationships which exist between defi- 
nite disorders, due to accident or disease, of these 
areas and certain defects of the human mind. For 
example, the post mortem examination of the brain 
of a patient, who during life was afflicted with men- 
tal blindness — the inability to understand optical 
impressions — shows that the areas connecting the 
visual centers with other parts of the cortex are 
broken down, so that the optical impression awak- 
ens no images or ideas in regard to the object seen. 
If the object is a word such as 'orange' or 'horse,' 
it means nothing, the patient cannot recall the sound 
of the word, nor is he able to pronounce it. In this 
case the optical center may function normally, but 
the connections between it and the centers for hear- 
ing and articulation, and possibly other sensory 
centers, are ruptured, and the rupture occurs in the 
association areas. Again, in cases of mental deaf- 
ness, the auditory center seems to perform its nor- 
mal functions, but on account of the disturbance of 
the association areas between it and other cortical 
areas, the sounds which the patient hears mean 
nothing. For example, he hears the ringing of a 
bell, but it awakens no memories or ideas of how the 
bell looks, or of its name, or of how it would 'feel' 
to the hand, or of any of its other properties. 

Cases of this sort, of which the books on neuro- 
pathology record a great many, strongly corrobo- 
rate the general theoretical opinion that the func- 



38 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

tion of the association areas is to connect the several 
sensory centers with one another and with the mo- 
tor areas, particularly those of speech ; further, and 
perhaps most important of all, their function is to 
connect the cortical processes correlated with sensa- 
tions and images, thus constituting an essential fea- 
ture of the nervous basis of perception and memory. 
It was such a variety of functions which James had 
in mind, perhaps, when he wrote : 

"Every namable thing, act, or relation has numerous 
properties, qualities, or aspects. In our minds the proper- 
ties of each thing, together with its name, form an asso- 
ciated group. If different parts of the brain are severally 
concerned with the several properties, and a further part 
with the hearing, and still another with the uttering, of the 
name, there must inevitably be brought about .... 
such a dynamic connection amongst all these brain parts 
that the activity of any one of them will be likely to awaken 
the activity of all the rest." ^ 

The Localization of Cerebral Functions. — The his- 
tory of opinion in regard to the localization of cere- 
bral functions may be divided roughly into four 
periods. To the first period — early part of the 
nineteenth century — belongs the system of phren- 
ology of Gall and his pupil, Spurzheim, which was 
an attempt to localize a number of cerebral organs 
(Spurzheim localized thirty-five), whose individual 
and separate functioning is the condition of a like 
number of independent mental "faculties," "capaci- 
ties," or "internal senses." (2) Gall's and Spurz- 



• Principles of Psycliology, I, p. 55. Compare p. 555. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 39 

heim's teachings fell into disrepute — first, because 
they came to be '^exploited chiefly by frauds and 
charlatans," and, second, because of the experiments 
of Flourens, which seemed to establish the doctrine 
of the functional equivalence of all parts of the 
cerebrum, i. e., that one part can perform the func- 
tions of any other part, and that the whole cerebrum 
assists in the performance of each function. Flou- 
rens' views were generally accepted by the physi- 
ologists till the publication, in 1870, of Fritsch and 
Hitzig's studies, which marked the beginning of the 
third period. (3) These investigators found that 
by stimulating electrically definite regions of the 
cortex of the dog's brain certain definite, highly 
specialized movements resulted. Then came a re- 
newal of interest in the localization question and a 
number of scientists of the first grade attacked the 
problem. Some of them worked by the method of 
stimulating electrically the cortical areas of various 
animals and of man ; some, by cutting away portions 
of the cortex and observing the sensory or motor 
defects which resulted; others, by autopsies on per- 
sons in whom motor and sensory defects were found 
to be related more or less closely to morbid changes 
in definite cerebral areas. The brilliant successes 
of these various lines of study soon tempted men to 
pass beyond the domain of ascertained fact to the 
realm of speculation, and there arose a tendency to 
conceive of the human cerebrum as consisting of a 
multitude of separate organs, thus returning to a 
view resembling in some respects the older doctrine 
of Gall. 



40 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

(4) The fourth period is best represented by 
Wundt's principle of relative localization as distin- 
guished from the theory of 'absolute' localization. 
Wundt's theory rests upon and includes four other 
'General Principles of the Central Functions,' which 
may be stated briefly, and, so far as possible, in his 
own words. ^ (1) The first of these is 'The Principle 
of the Connection of Elements.' This principle 
may be stated from the three standpoints of anat- 
omy, physiology, and psychology. 'Anatomically 
regarded, the nervous system is a unitary complex 
of numerous elements ; and every one of these mor- 
phological elements stands in more or less close 
connection with others.' 'Physiologically, the prin- 
ciple of the connection of elements implies that 
every physiological activity which is open to our 
observation and analysis, is composed of a large 

number of elementary functions In 

particular, e. g., the physiological process under- 
lying, however simple a sensation or muscular con- 
traction is a complex process, involving the activity 

of many elementary parts Lastly, 

there is a psychological, as well as an anatomical 
and physiological formulation of the principle. It 
means, psychologically, that the simplest psychical 
contents discoverable by analysis of the facts of 
consciousness (simple sensations or simple feelings) 
always presuppose, as their physiological subtrate, 
complex nerve processes, and the result of the co- 
operation of many elementary parts. 



'^Principles of Physiological Psychology, Eng'. trans, by Titch- 
ener, 1904, vol. I, pp. 287 ff. 320 ff. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 41 

The principle just explained is opposed to the theory of 
the autonomy of the elements which is that the physiological 
nerve elements, the nerve cells, can mediate extremely com_- 
plex psychical functions. 'Thus, according to this [latter] 
theory, a single cell may, according to circumstances, be the 
vehicle of a sensation or of a compound idea, a concept.' 
This theory, in its crudest form, attempts to estimate the 
number of ideas that, on emergency, may be lodged in an 
individual consciousness, by counting the number of cells 
in the cerebral cortex. 

(2) The second principle is that of 'the Original 
Indifference of Functions,' namely, that the nervous 
elements originally were not specialized as to the 
functions which they should mediate. This prin- 
ciple is supported, anatomically, by the essential 
identity of structure that we find throughout the 
elements of the nervous system ■ 'physiologically, the 
principle of indifference of function is attested by 
the uniform character of the forces that reside in 
the nervous elements .... 'Lastly, the prin- 
ciple derives its principal support, on the psycho- 
logical side, from the fact that the specific differ- 
ences in the sensory contents of consciousness, if 
they are of an elementary nature, may always be 
resolved into qualities of sensation and feeling that 
depend upon the functions of peripheral elements,' 
and not upon the specific energies of the nervous 
elements within the cerebral cortex. Wundt admits 
that the so-called 'law of specific energy' still holds 
its own in current scientific thought, but predicts 
that its final statement will relate to the peripheral 
sensory elements. 



42 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

(3) Wundt's third general principle of brain 
function is that of 'Practice and Adaptation.' 

"Practice .... consists in the perfection 
of a function by its repeated performance. Hence 
the principle of practice, as applied to the functions 
of the nervous system, signifies that every central 
element, whether considered by itself or regarded 
as cooperating in some special way, determined by 
the conditions of life, with other like elements, 
becomes better and better fitted to discharge or to 
share in the discharge of a particular function, the 
more frequently it has been called to its service by 
pressure of external conditions." Practice is, there- 
fore, to be looked upon as responsible for many of 
the changes which take place "in the nervous appa- 
ratus and their appended organs." Ordinarily the 
first eflfect of practice "is the perfection of a given 
function; but it may also lead to new combinations 
of elementary nerve processes by which the original 
nature of a complex function is altered and the 
function itself, in accordance with the general char- 
acter of practice, moulded into new combinations as 
conditions may require. Under these circumstances 
the process of practice is termed "adaptation." 

(4) "The Principle of Vicarious Function" is that 
under certain conditions nerve elements assume 
functions which they have not previously dis- 
charged, though they must, of course, have carried 
within them the latent possibility of their new offices. 

(5) The Principle of Relative Localization. The 
following quotation shows how Wundt's four prin- 
ciples: (1) of connection of elements; (2) of orig- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 43 

inal indifference of functions; (3) of practice and 
adaptation, and (4) of vicarious function, support 
his Principle of Relative Localization in opposition 
to the hypothesis of an absolute localization : 

"There can be no doubt that, in a certain sense, the cent- 
ral functions, [those of the cerebrum] like those of the per- 
ipheral organs, are spatially distinct. But there can also 
be no doubt that the central organ, as its name implies, 
represents, in contradistinction to the peripheral organs, a 
centralisation and thus, at the same time, an unification of 
functions; so that any absolute localisation of function, 
which should confine each separate activity within fixed 
limits, is a priori impossible, as it is also unsupported by 
the facts of observation. In the peripheral organs, where 
the demands of external function have produced diversity 
of structure, the principle of division of labour is strictly 
observed, and the localisation of function follows in the train 
of its observance. In the centres of the nervous system, 
the principle is broken through in two different ways. On 
the one hand, every central function divideis .... into a 
number of subordinate and auxiliary functions, which of 
themselves embrace wide and, in part, widely remote areas 
of the central nervous system. On the other, the processes 
of practice, adaptation and vicarious function show that the 
spatial centralisation of a function is not fixed, but depend- 
ent upon its exercise, and upon the conditions under which 
this exercise is placed, so that any rigid spatial limitation 
is out of the question .... The principle of [relative] 
localisation also stands in the closest relation to the prin- 
ciples of the connexion of elements and of the original in- 
difference of function. For without the connexion of ele- 
ments that is required by every, even the simplest form of 
central activity, and without an original and, in the case 
of many central elements, a permanent functional indiffer- 
ence, there could be no shift of the limits of a function with 
change in its conditions. In fine, then, the principle of 



44 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

relative localisation gathers up and includes all the preced- 
ing principles, as its necessary presuppositions; v/hile an 
absolute localisation of the central functions, such as is 
often-times assumed, comes into direct conflict with every 
one of them." 

In brief, Wundt's doctrine of relative localization, 
in contradistinction to the theory of absolute locali- 
zation, gives prominence to the idea of cooperation 
of the different cortical regions as the physical cor- 
relate of the various psychical activities. It follows 
that the terms 'central organ', 'speech center,' Vis- 
ual center,' and the like, cannot relate to any single 
region or point of the cortex, but rather to two or 
more cortical regions whose functions are coordi- 
nated. 

This completes our outline of the structure and 
functions of the brain, the principal organ of con- 
sciousness. We may turn now to a brief study of: 

The Spinal Cord. — Anatomically and function- 
ally, the spinal cord is continuous with the medulla 
oblongata; but for convenience in description the 
former is defined as that portion of the cerebro- 
spinal axis which lies in the vertebral or spinal col- 
umn, popularly known as the "back bone." In the 
human adult the cord is about 17 inches long and 
about three-fourths inch in diameter, tapering at 
the lower end and terminating in a slender filament. 

Viewed in cross-section the cord is seen to be 
almost divided into two symmetrical halves by. fis- 
sures, one on its ventral and one on its dorsal side. 
(Fig. 11.) The cross-section shows further a cen- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 45 

tral grayish H-shaped area consisting of a mesh of 
fibres and a multitude of nerve cells — the gray mat- 
ter of the cord. Each half of this area is divisible 
into three parts: (1) The short, thick, roundish 
anterior horn; (2) the long, slender, posterior horn, 
and (3) the part lying between the horns and con- 
necting them (See Fig. 11). The gray matter of 
the cord is surrounded by the v/hite matter which 




Fig. 11. Cross-section of the spinal cord : a^ anterior fissure ; pj 
posterior fissure; co.a, anterior horn; co.l, lateral horn; co.p, 
posterior horn ; r.a, anterior and r.p, posterior roots of the 
spinal nerves. (After Ladd, modified.) 

consists, exclusive of the supporting and connective 
tissues, of nerve fibres running lengthwise of the 
cord. The fibers are of three classes : (1) those which 
form paths of connection between the cerebrum and 
the sense-organs, the muscles and glands of the body, 
i. e., ascending fibres carrying sensory impulses to 
the cerebrum, and descending fibres conveying motor 



46 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

impulses to different bodily organs; (2) ascending 
and descending fibres which connect the gray matter 
of the cord with the cerebellum; and (3) fibres 
which connect different levels of the cord. 

Functions of the Spinal Cord. — Structurally re- 
garded, the spinal cord consists of (1) a system of 
reflex centers, and (2) multitudes of nerve fibres 
connecting different levels of the cord with one 
another and with the brain. Accordingly, the two 
principal functions of the spinal cord are: (1) to 
mediate reflex actions, and (2) to serve as a path- 
way for nervous impulses to and fro between the 
brain and the outlying parts of the body. 

A pure reflex action is one which occurs imme- 
diately in response to the excitation of a sensory 
nerve and without conscious guidance. For ex- 
ample, if one tickles the sole of the foot of a sleeping 
child, the foot is withdrawn at once and without the 
child's "willing" so to act. In this case, the impulse 
set up by the tickling travels over a sensory neu- 
rone to a reflex center in the cord from which a 
motor impulse flows out to the muscles whose action 
causes the withdrawal of the foot. Suppose, how- 
ever, that the child is awake ; then the tickling stim- 
ulus results not only in the tendency to withdraw 
the foot as before, but also the consciousness of the 
tickling and possibly the idea of withdrawing the 
foot, hiding it, and the like. In the latter case, it 
is clear that the impulse which originated in the 
foot traveled first to the cord, thence up the cord 
to the brain cortex, finally resulting in a motor im- 
pulse downward from the cortex into the cord and 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 47 



BRAIN 




Fig, 12. Diagram showing principal functions of the spinal cord. 



48 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

out to the muscles involved in withdrawing the foot. 
In the reflex withdrawal, the nerve current took a 
short route through a section of the spinal cord; in 
the voluntary, it took the long route by way of as- 
cending tracts to the cortex, returning along the 
descending paths of the cord to the point of emer- 
gence, thence to the leg muscles. 

The two principal functions performed by the 
cord as a system of reflex centres and as a pathway 
between different parts of the nervous system are 
illustrated in Figure 12, p. 47. The sensory ending 
of a nerve fibre terminates in the part marked, in 
the figure, "sense-organ." The stimulation of this 
organ excites an impulse which travels along the 
fibre a toward the cord as indicated by the arrow. 
Upon reaching the cord, the impulse may either 
pass over at once to a motor center in the cord and 
thence along the motor fibre e to the muscle, result- 
ing in a reflex action; or it may pass upward, by a 
series of fibre connections, to the cerebral cortex, 
where it is transformed into a motor impulse which 
passes downward, and by another series of connec- 
tions, terminating in the muscle. 

It should be remembered that nervous action is 
rarely, if ever, as simple as that represented by the 
diagram and the foregoing description. The latter 
are intended merely to show in the simplest way the 
essential features of the two chief functions of the 
spinal cord, and incidentally the difference between 
an action which involves the brain and one which 
does not. 

The Peripheral Nervous System. — So far in our 
study of the nervous system we have been con- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 49 

cemed mainly with the central part — the brain and 
spinal cord. We have next to review the principal 
features of the peripheral nervous system, the part 
which serves to relate the various organs and tis- 
sues of the body to the central system. 

The peripheral nerves may be grouped into two 
main systems: (1) the cerebro-spinal, and (2) the 
sympathetic. The former is divided into (a) the 
cranial nerves, which are attached to the brain, and 
(b) the spinal nerves, which are attached to the 
spinal cord. 

The Cranial Nerves, — The twelve pairs of cranial 
nerves pass from the brain through small openings 
in the base of the skull to various parts of the head, 
mainly, though a few of them send branches to the 
respiratory organs, the heart, oesophagus, stomach 
and intestine. Figure 3 (p. 20) shows the superfi- 
cial origins of the cranial nerves, i. e., the points 
at which they emerge from the brain. Some cranial 
nerves are wholly motor in function, i. e., convey 
only outgoing impulses from the brain; some are 
wholly sensory, i. e., convey only sensory impulses 
to the brain ; others are both sensory and motor. 

The cranial nerves are named either according 
to the structures or surfaces in which they termi- 
nate peripherally or according to their functions. 
The numbers, names, and principal functions of 
these nerves are given in the following table from 
Piersol.^ 



1 PiERSOL, Human Anatomy, Vol. II, p. 1220, 



50 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



THE CRANIAL NERVES. 



NUMBER. NAME. 

I. Olfactory : 

IL Optic: 

III. Oculomotor : 

IV. Trochlear : 
V. Trigeminal : 

VI. Abducent: 

VII. Facial. 



VIII. Auditory: 

(a) Cochlear divi- 
sion: 

(b) Vestibular divi- 
sion: 

IX. Glosso-Pharyngeal : 



X. Pneumogastric or 
Vagus : 



XT. Spinal Accessory: 
XII. Hypoglossal : 



FUNCTION. 

Special sense of smell. 

Special sense of sight 

Motor to eye-muscles and le- 
vator palpebrae superioris. 

Motor to superior oblique 
muscle. 

Common sensation to struc- 
tures of head. 

Motor to muscles of mastica- 
tion. 

Motor to external rectus 
muscle. 

Motor to muscles of head 
(scalp and face) and neck 
(platysma) . 

Probably secretory to sub- 
maxillary and sublingual 
glands. 

Sensory (taste) to anterior 
two-thirds of tongue. 



Hearing. 

Equilibration. 

Special sense of taste. 

Common sensation to part of 
tongue and to pharynx and 
middle ear. 

Motor to some muscles of 
pharynx. 

Common sensation to part of 
tongue, pharynx, oesopha- 
gus, stomach and respira- 
tory organs. 

Motor (in conjunction with 
bulbar part of spinal ac- 
cessory) to muscles of 
pharynx, oesophagus, 
stomach and intestine, and 
respiratory organs ; inhi- 
bitory impulses to heart. 

Spinal Part: Motor to stern- 
omastoid and trapesius 
muscles. 

Motor to muscles of tongue. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 51 

The Spinal Nerves, of which there are usually 
thirty-one pairs, are attached to the spinal cord and 
emerge from the spinal canal through openings be- 
tween the vertebrae of the spinal column, and pass 
to the various parts of the body. They are named 
according to the part of the vertebral canal from 
which they emerge. Thus there are eight pairs of 
cervical nerves, twelve pairs of thoracic nerves, 
five pairs of lumbar, five pairs of sacral, and one 
pair of coccygeal nerves. See Fig. 2 (p. 18) for 
the points of attachment of the spinal nerves to the 
spinal cord. 

The Sympathetic, or Autonomic, Nervous System. — 
The second main division of the peripheral nervous 
system is the sympathetic, or autonomic, system, 
which comprises, according to Hardesty's classifica- 
tion: 

"(1) the two chains of nerve ganglia, one on each side of 
the spinal column and running parallel therewith; (see 
figure 2, p. 18) ; (2) the great pre-vertebral plexuses, i. e., 
net works of nerve ganglia and nerve fibers lying in front 
of the vertebral column, of which there are roughly three, — 
one in the thorax, one in the abdomen, and one in the pelvic 
cavity (see fig. 13, p. 52) ; (3) the numerous terminal 
ganglia and plexuses situated either within or close to the 
walls of the various organs; (4) the trunks and fibre 
bands connecting the ganglia with each other, and thus 
contributing to the plexuses, or connecting the ganglia with 
other nerves or with the organs with whose innervation 
they are concerned." ' 



Note. The name autonomic system, used by some authors, 
expresses the fact that this system is in a measure autonomous, 
independent of the central system. 

1 Morris, Human Anatomy, Part III, p. 1002. 



Cervical nerve 




Sacral nervel 
I 
M 

Y 
Coccygeal nerve 



5ACRAU 
PLEXUS- 



Fig. 13. The figure represents the coarser portions of the sym- 
pathetic nervous sj'stem and its principal connections with the 
cerebro-spinal sj^stem. (After Morris, modified.") 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 53 

The sympathetic system difrera from the cerebro- 
spinal system, according to Hardesty, (1) in the 
fact that the cranial and spinal nerves are struc- 
turally continuous with the brain and spinal cord, 
while the fibres of the sympathetic system do not 
actually enter the central system; (2) "the cerebro- 
spinal nerves are distributed to the ordinary sen- 
sory surfaces of the body and the organs of special 
sense, and to the somatic, striated, or ''voluntary" 
muscles of the body; the sympathetic fibres (on the 
other hand) are devoted chiefly to the supply of the 
so-called involuntary muscles of the body, including 
the smooth muscle in the walls of the viscera and 
in the walls of the blood and lymph vascular systems, 
while some serve as secretory fibres to the glands."' 
From this it follows (3) that the sympathetic sys- 
tem is not under voluntary control. The organic 
processes which depend upon the sympathetic sys- 
tem, e. g., the movements of the stomach and intes- 
tines, the secretions of the digestive tract, heart 
action, breathing, contraction of the arterial mus- 
cles — occur reflexly, and, as a rule, unconsciously. 

We say, 'as a rule' because under certain conditions, as 
we shall see in our chapters on sensation, feeling, and emo- 
tion, the vegetative processes are accompanied by sensory 
and feeling experiences. 

The psychologist, however, is interested in the sympa 
thetic system chiefly because it is mainly through this (as 
a bond of connection between the cerebro-spinal system on 
the one hand and the organs of circulation, digestion, and 
respiration on the other) that the course of our mental life 
produces- at times such marked changes in these organs; 
and because it forms part of the pathway whereby mental 



1 INIORRis, Human Anatomij, 899 1". 



54 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



disturbances, particularly of the emotional type, are related 
to the functioning of these structures. 

And, as Angell observes, it is to the activity of these 
parts "that we owe our general sense of bodily well- 
being, as well as our feelings of distress and pain 
when any of these great life functions goes astray. 
Our consciousness is undoubtedly toned, as it were. 




Fig. 14. Typical cell bodies of the neurones of the human nervous 
system. A, from the ventral horn of the spinal cord ; Bj 
Purkinje cell from the cerebellar cortex ; C, pyramidal cell 
from cerebral cortex ; D, Golgi cell from sp. cord ; E, fusiform 
cell from cerebral cortex. 



all the time by the condition and activity of the 

organs under the control of the autonomic system."' 

In the preceding paragraphs of this chapter, we 

have endeavored to describe the general arrange- 



Psychology, 1908, p. 58. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 55 

ment of the human nervous system. We have also 
stated briefly those facts in respect to the structure 
and functions of those parts of the brain, the spinal 
cord, the cerebro-spinal nerves, and the sympathetic 
system, which are of most interest in an introduc- 
tory course in psychology. It is next in order to 
study the neurone, the structural and functional unit 
of the nervous system. 

The Neurone. — The nervous system proper, i. e., 
exclusive of the tissues which hold its parts in place 
and exclusive of the organs which nourish it, is 
composed of millions of thread-like bodies called 
'neurones.' A neurone, or nerve cell, consists of the 
cell-body and the fiber-like structures called cell- 
processes, which are outgrowths of the cell body. 
The processes are of two kinds : ( 1 ) The dendrites, 
with their tree-like branchings, and (2) the axones, 
slender fibers, uniform in diameter, sometimes short, 
sometimes of great length, as where they extend 
from the brain cortex to the lower extremity of the 
spinal cord, or from the lower part of the spinal 
cord to the muscles of the foot. The branches from 
the axones, called collaterals, are at right angles to 
the main fiber, instead of branching tree-like as do 
the dendritic processes. See Figure 14, C. 

Figure 14 gives an idea of the varieties of form of the 
cell-bodies and processes of typical neurones of the human 
nervous system. Figure 15, A-D, (p. 56) shows "the 
phylogenetic development of mature nerve-cells in a series 
of vertebrates; a-e, the ontogenetic development of grow- 
ing cells in a typical mammal". Donaldson after Cajal. 

The Chief Groups of Neurones. — From one point 
of view, the nervous system may be described as an 



56 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




Fig. 15. A-D, showing the phylogenetic development of mature nerve- 
cells in a series of vertebrates ; a-e, the ontogenetic development of 
growing cells in a typical mammal ; in both cases only pyramidal 
cells from the cerebrum are shown ; A, frog ; B, lizard ; C, rat ; 
Dj man ; a, neuroblast without dendrites ; b, commencing dendrites ; 
c, dendrites further developed: d, first appearance of collateral 
branches; e, further development of collaterals and dendrites (Don- 
aldson from S. Ram6n y Cajal.) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 57 

apparatus which receives impulses from the outlying 
parts of the body, and which transmits these im- 
pulses to a central apparatus, the brain or spinal 
cord, where they are either transmitted directly, or 
recombined and then distributed, to the motor areas 
of the central bodies, whence they flow to the mus- 
cular or glandular tissues. 

In accordance with this conception of the func- 
tions of the nervous system, the neurones are divided 
into three groups: (1) the afferent, or sensory, neu- 
rones, whose function is to receive and to transmit 
to the central nervous system impulses that originate 
in the sense organs; (2) the associating, or central 
neurones, whose function is to receive sensory im- 
pulses and to transmit them at once or to form them 
into new combinations, then to distribute them to 
(3) the efferent, or motor neurones, whose processes 
carry impulses to the muscles or to other bodily 
organs. In other words, there are (1) neurones 
which are affected directly by happenings in the en- 
vironment, including the subject's own body; (2) 
neurones which carry impulses to the muscles and 
glands; (3) neurones which serve as paths of con- 
nection between the first and second groups. 

Sensory Neurones and Sense Organs. — From the 
foregoing sketch it appears that the sensory neu- 
rones are essential parts of the apparatus for the 
excitation of sensations. In some cases, the neu- 
rones which mediate sensory impulses terminate 
peripherally in 'free' endings; in other cases, the 
peripheral termination of a sensory neurone is 
enclosed in a 'capsule'; in still others, it forms a 
part of an elaborate structure, such as the eye or 



58 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




Fig. 16. Aj End-bulb of Krause ; £, Meissner corpuscle from skin; 
C, Motor end-plate on striated muscle cell ; D^ Free sensory- 
nerve fibrils in epithelium ; E^ Motor termination upon smooth 
muscle-cell ; F^, Sensory nerve tf rmination in tendou ; G, 
Pacinian corpuscle. (After Morris and Davies. ) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 59 

ear, especially arranged to control the effects of 
certain kinds of stimuli; all three classes of organs 
— the 'free' endings, the encapsulated sensory end- 
ings, as well as the more elaborate structures — are 
spoken of Sense Organs. 

Free Sensory Endings. — These are found in vast 
numbers in the skin and mucous membranes. Fig- 
ure 16, D, represents the mode of their termination. 
Titchener thinks it probable that the organs of pain 
are to be found in these free nerve endings.^ 

The Encapsulated Sensory Endings. — The nerve 
endings belonging to this group are alike in consist- 
ing of a net- work of terminal fibers, embedded in a 
fluid-like substance, and enclosed in a thin covering. 
The following are the best known structures of this 
class: (1) the end-bulbs of Krause ; (2) Meissner's 
corpuscles; (3) Ruffini's corpuscles; (4) the Pacin- 
ian corpuscles ; (5) the muscle spindles ; (6) the ten- 
dinous spindles. 

(1) The end-bulbs of Krause (Fig. 16, A) are 
found in the edge of the eyelid, the lips and the 
mucous membrane of the mouth, and in other highly 
sensitive tissues. Their function is possibly to me- 
diate the sensation of cold. 

(2) The Meissner corpuscles (Fig. 16, B) are 
most numerous in the skin covering the flexor sur- 
faces of the palms of the hands and the soles of the 
feet. They are also distributed over the back of 
the hand and foot, the inside of the fore-arm, the 
lips, and certain parts of the genital organs. These 
corpuscles are the organs of the pressure (touch) 
sense on the hairless regions of the cutaneous sur- 
face. 



1 A Text-Book of Psychology, p. 154. 



60 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

(3) RufRni's corpuscles are comparatively large 
bodies and lie in the deeper layers of the skin. 
These organs perhaps mediate the sensation of 
warmth. (Titchener). 

(4) The Pacinian corpuscles (Fig. 16, G), the 
largest and the most complex of the sense-organs 
described thus far, are found, in man, to quote Pier- 
sol, "in the deeper layers of the connective tissue 
layer of the skin, especially- on the palmar and 
plantar aspects of the fingers and toes, in the con- 
nective tissue in the vicinity of the joints, in ten- 
dons, in the sheath of the muscles, in the periosteum 
and tunica propria of the serous membranes, the 
peritoneum, pleura and pericardium." Pacini's cor- 
puscles are supposed to be pressure sense-organs. 

(5) The muscle spindles, following Piersol's de- 
scription, "lie within the connective tissue separat- 
ing the bundles of voluntary muscle fibers and are 
long spindle-shaped structures, varying in length 
from 1-5 mm., or more, and in width from .1-.3 
v/here broadest. They are widely distributed, being 
probably present in all the skeletal muscles, and are 
especially numerous in the small muscles of the 
hand and foot." The muscle spindles are possibly 
the seat of 'the dragging, sore, tired sensations' 
which occur when the muscle is pressed firmly or 
when it "is thrown into forced contraction by the 
electric current." (Titchener.) 

(6) The tendinous spindles are also spindle-like 
structures, from 1-1.5 mm. in length, found in the 
region where the muscles and tendons join. In re- 
gard to the function of these organs, Titchener says, 
in substance, the sensation of strain, which comes 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 61 

in all cases of severe or prolonged muscular work, 
appears to come from the tendons and to have its 
organs in the tendinous spindles. ^ 

The Special Sense Organs. — It was said above 
(p. 57) that the sensitive part of every sense-organ 
consists of the peripheral termination of a sensory- 
neurone (or neurones) existing either as 'free' 
nerve-endings or as encapsulated bodies or as the 
sensory element of the more complicated structures 
commonly known as the special sense-organs, the 
organs of taste, smell, sight, and hearing. In the 
paragraphs immediately preceding we have noted 
certain typical structures that belong to the first two 
groups. We may next consider briefly the termi- 
nation of the sensory neurones in the special sense- ' 
organs. 

Organs of Taste.— The nerves of taste terminate 

peripherally in bodies 
called 'taste-buds,' which 
are distributed chiefly over 
the tip, the borders, and 
the posterior portion of 
the upper side of the 
tongue. The taste-buds 
consist of two classes of 
cell-elements, the gusta- 
tory cells, or taste cells 
proper, and the supporting 
cells. The typical arrange- 
ment of the two classes 
of cells within the taste-buds is shown in Figure 17, 




Fig. 17. Taste-bud. A^ taste- 
pore ; B, supporting cells ; 
Cj gustatory cell. 



^A Text-Book of Psycliology, §§ 38-50, 



62 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



The nerves of taste enter at the base of the taste- 
bud, then rapidly subdivide into fibrillse which wind 
their way among the cells and terminate in free 
endings which are often in contact with the gusta- 
tory cells. Sensations of taste originate in the action 
of chemical changes in the gustatory cells upon the 
adjoining nerve fibrils. The excitation of the fibrils 
is transmitted to certain nerve cells or ganglia, 
thence to the brain cortex. 

Organ of Smell. — The olfactory fibres terminate 

in the olfactory 
cells, the end or- 
gans for the 
sense of smell. 
These cells are 
distributed over 
a small area in 
the upper part of 
the nasal cham- 
ber. The rela- 
tions of the olfac- 
tory cells to the 
surrounding tis- 
sues are shown 
in Figure 18. 
The Termination of the Branches of the Auditory 
Nerve. — The student may recall that the auditory 
nerve consists of two portions : the cochlear, which 
transmits sound impulses, and the vestibular, which 
'is concerned with peculiar sensations from the 
semi-circular canals and vestibule that have an im- 
portant influence on muscular activity, especially in 




Fig. 18. Section of olfactory mucous 
membrane (after V. Brunn) : the ol- 
factory cells are in black. — (Donald- 
son.) 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 63 



complex movements.' The fibres of the cochlear 
branch end in terminal arborizations which lie in 
contact with the cells of the organ of Corti, an elab- 
orate structure situated in the cochlea. Physiology 
teaches that sensations of sound are due to the effect 
which sound waves produce upon the sense-cells of 
this organ. The fibres of the vestibular branches of 




Fig. 19. Semidiagrammatic section through the right ear {Czer- 
mak) : G, External auditory meatus; T, membrana tympani ; 
P, tympanic cavity ; o, fenestra ovalis ; r, fenestra rotunda ; 
B, semicircular canal ; S^ cochlea ; Vt, scala vestibuli ; Pt, 
scala tympani ; E, Eustachian tube. 

the auditory nerve terminate in certain membranes 
of the vestibule and the semi-circular canals of the 
inner ear. (Fig. 19 shows a semi-diagrammatic sec- 
tion through the right ear.) 

The Termination of the Optic Nerve Fibres, — The 
nerve fibres composing the optic nerve spread ra- 



64 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



dially from the point at which the optic nerve 
pierces the choroid coat of the eye-ball, forming a 
thin film known as the retina, which covers the in- 
side of the posterior surface of the eye-ball. (Fig. 
20). The retina, which contains the organs whose 
stimulation gives rise to the visual sensations is 



r n 




Fig. 20. Horizontal section through the left eye. (Prom Ladd's 
Elements of Physiol. Psych. Fig-. 48, modified.) 



composed essentially of nine layers of nerve cells 
and fibres, the innermost being the layer of nerve 
cells known as rods and cones. See Figure 21, 
which shows a diagrammatic section of seven of the 
laj^ers of the retina: 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 65 

Physiology teaches that the rods and cones con- 
tain chemical substances which freely change under 
the influence of light waves, and that the changes 
thus induced start impulses which traverse the 
outer layers of the retina to the radial branches of 




A 



Fig. 21. Diagrammatic representation of the structure of the 
retina (Cajal) : A, layer of rods and cones ; B, external 
nuclear layer; C, external molecular (or plexiform) layer; E. 
internal nuclear layer; F^ internal molecular (or plexiform) 
layer ; Gj layer of ganglion-cells ; H^ layer of nerve-fibres. 

the optic nerve, and are then transmitted along the 
latter to the optical centers of the cerebral cortex 
giving rise to the sensations of sight. 

This section began with the statement (p. 57) 
that the human nervous system consists essentially 

5 



66 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of three classes of neurones: (1) those concerned 
with the transmission of sensory impulses; (2) 
those which convey motor impulses from the brain 
and spinal cord to the outlying parts of the body; 
(3) those connecting the sensory and motor neu- 
rones. In the preceding paragraphs, we have 
studied the sensory neurone as a sense organ, and 
we have learned something of the variety, and, in 
certain instances, the complexity, of the organs in- 
volved in the process of gathering and transmitting 
sensory impulses. It remains to state more defi- 
nitely the structural and functional relations of the 
motor and the associative neurones. 

The Motor Neurones and Motor Organs. — The 
motor neurones terminate peripherally either in the 
voluntary muscles, those which are under conscious 
control, or in the non-voluntary, e. g., the muscles 
of the walls of the blood vessels or of the intestine 
which are not subject to conscious control. In the 
voluntary muscles the neurones terminate in minute 
oval-shaped bodies called end-plates. (See Fig. 16 C, 
p. 58). In the non-voluntary, the axones terminate 
'in minute terminal knots on the surface of the mus- 
cle-cells'. Fig. 16, E. (Piersol). In voluntary move- 
ments, the nervous impulse causing muscular con- 
traction terminates in the end-plate. 

The Associative Neurones. — According to the 
view developed in this text thus far, the primary 
function of the nervous system is to enable an ani- 
mal, human or other, to make the appropriate re- 
sponses to the environmental influences so that on 
the whole it shall prosper and its days in the land 
shall be long. And we have seen that the higher 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM 67 

organisms are provided with an elaborate apparatus 
for receiving impulses from the outside world, and 
also with motor machinery for responding to these 
impulses. We have seen also that the sensory neu- 
rones form an essential feature of the former, the 
receiving apparatus, and that the motor neurones 
are likewise essential to the latter. We have next 
to recall that in the higher organisms the path from 
the terminus of the incoming impulse to the point 
of origin of the outgoing, or motor, impulse is often 
long and tortuous, and that the paths are formed 
by the structures already referred to as the asso- 
ciation, or central, neurones. These bodies lie wholly 
within the central nervous system and their function 
is to distribute incoming impulses to other parts of 
this system. And it is possible through their medi- 
ation, as Thorndike says, that almost any kind of 
sensory stimulus — visual, auditory, pain, warm, 
gustatory, what not — may be connected with any 
set of motor cells and so influence any bodily act.^ 

REFERENCES 

Donaldson: American Text-Book of Physiology, Vol. Il, 
pp. 171-297. 

Howell: Text-Book of Physiology, Sections II, III. 

Judd: Psychology, Chs. II, III. 

Ladd and Woodworth: Elements of Physiological Psychol- 
ogy. 

McDougall: Primer of Physiological Psychology. 

Morris: Human Anatomy, Part III. 

Piersol: Human Anatomy, Vol. II. 

Wundt: Principles of Physiological Psychology. 



''■Elements of Psycliology, 1905, p. 149. 



CHAPTER III 

SENSATION IN GENERAL' 

Definition. — If the student should search out and 
compare the definitions of Sensation in a series of 
representative modern text-books of psychology, his 
first impression would be that there is but slight 
similarity among them. Thus, one author stresses 
the fact that sensation is a form of consciousness 
which depends upon the stimulation of a sense- 
organ by some agency outside the nervous system; 
another, that sensation makes us acquainted with 
the qualities of the objects which stimulate these 
organs, e. g., the sourness of lemonade, the green- 
ness of the grass, or the coldness of ice; a third 
author emphasizes the fact of the elementariness, 
or simplicity, of sensations as compared with, e. g., 
perceptions and memories; still a fourth, thinking 
for the time being about the order of the appearance 
of the various kinds of conscious experience in the 
developing mind of the child, defines sensation as 
'the first thing in the way of consciousness.' Now 
all these authors are describing the same mental 
phenomena, but they are describing them in different 
ways because their points of view or purposes differ. 
One emphasizes one distinctive feature of sensation ; 



1 The discussion of Sensation and of the Classes of Sensations in 
this and the following- chapter follows, in the main, Titchener's 
treatment of these topics in his Text-Book of Psychology^ §§ 10-59. 

(68) 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 69 

a second, another, and so on — the fact being that 
a complete definition of sensation includes an enu- 
meration of all the four characteristics just men- 
tioned, and possibly others. We may say, then, that 
sensations are those elementary conscious processes 
which are in immediate dependency upon the stim- 
ulation of the sense-organs, that they are essential 
to our knowledge of the outside world, including our 
own bodies, and that, temporally regarded, they are 
the earliest forms of consciousness. Each of these 
four items of our definition, which are, as we have 
seen, so many ways of regarding sensations, re- 
quires a few further words of explanation. And 
first of — 

Sensations as Mental Elements. — This way of con- 
ceiving of sensation is employed chiefly by those 
psychologists who study the mental life from the 
structural point of view as described above (p. 7f.). 
Indeed, the words 'element' and 'elementary' are 
primarily structural terms; they suggest make-up, 
constitution. So to describe sensations as mental 
elements involves the additional view that in the 
analysis of our complex consciousnesses, our per- 
ceptions, memories, imaginations, into their sim- 
plest, most elementary parts, we shall come upon 
sensations, upon colors, sounds, tastes, odors, which 
resist all further effort to resolve them into simpler 
parts. 

The meaning of the statement that sensation is a 
structural element of consciousness may be made 
clearer, perhaps, by remarking that it relates solely 
to a mental phenomenon or process, and not to some- 



70 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

thing outside the mind, to things of the material 
world. Thus 'red,' as a sensation element, is a red 
consciousness, so to speak, not a red something 
which one sees in the external world; and a sensa- 
tion of cold is not a sensation of a cold something, 
but a cold consciousness. To quote Titchener, "The 
sensation 'blue' (as a structural element of con- 
sciousness) does not tell us of a blue object' . . . 
. . It simply presents itself as a mental irreducible 

If the student insist, as at first he 

may, that he cannot possibly think of a 'blue' that 
is not a 'blue something' — remind him that "he is 
not to 'think of blue at all, but to be a blue; his 
consciousness is to be a blue consciousness." The 
sensation 'blue' is to be stripped 'of all the overlay 
of associated processes that make 'blue' mean 'the 
blueness of something' in everyday life."^ 

Furthermore, it should be borne in mind that 
when the psychologist speaks of sensations as men- 
tal elements, he does not mean little particles or 
atoms of mind which can be separated out from the 
total consciousness, as one may separate the beads 
on a string. Not only is this way of conceiving of 
a mental element preposterous in itself; but when 
once lodged it straightway becomes the source of 
several psychological absurdities. One of these re- 
sulting false notions is that strong, intense, volum- 
inous sensations are composed of a number of 
smaller, weaker sensations; that, for example, an 
intense bitter consists of a number of weaker bit- 



^ Experimental Psychology, 1901, Vol. I, p. 4. 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 71 

ters, a loud tone of a fusion of fainter tones. In 
truth, each sensation, whether faint or intense, tiny 
or voluminous, momentary or prolonged, is in James' 
words, "a. complete integer, an indivisible unit." 

A second erroneous notion that arises easily from 
the supposition that mental elements are real bits 
or fragments of mind, existing at first isolatedly, 
is that mental development consists in the gradual 
aggregation of these elements. The truer view is 
that at first the baby's mental experience consists 
of a vague, confused mass of sensations and feel- 
ings ; and that 'the world of sense', as Thorndike 
writes, 'comes not as a building constructed of small 
pieces of bricks and mortar and glass, but as a land- 
scape gradually clearing up from the obscurity of a 
fog."^ 

(2) Sensation and Sensory Stimulus. — Sensations 
are distinguished from other mental phenomena by 
the fact that they depend entirely upon impulses 
originating in the stimulation of the sense-organs. 
The stimuli, which are always external to the ner- 
vous system, may originate either outside the body 
or in some change in the internal bodily organs. 
Sound waves, the stimuli to hearing, are external 
stimuli ; the changes in the digestive tract which 
cause hunger are internal stimuli. 

A 'stimulus' may be defined as an agency outside the 
nervous system and acting upon it so as to cause either a 
sensation or a movement of some part of the body or both. 
A liminal, or just noticeable, or minimal, stimulus is one 
whose intensity is so weak, or whose duration is so brief, or 



^Elements of Psychology, 1905, p. 22 



72 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

whose extent or area is so small, that it is barely sensible. 
A terminal, or maximal, stimulus, is one whose increase 
either in intensity or duration or extensity no longer pro- 
duces any change in consciousness. A subliminal stimulus 
is one which js too weak or too brief or too small to be 
sensed. 

In this connection it is important, as Stout re- 
marks, "to distinguish the cause, i. e., 'the essential 
antecedents' of sensation from the object of sense- 
perception. . . . The colour sensation, for in- 
stance, is due to a vibratory motion of the particles 
of the luminiferous ether, giving rise to certain 
chemical or physical changes in the organ of vision, 
and so to a certain modification of connected parts 
of the nervous system. But these conditions are not 
what a man sees when he perceives the color red or 
blue."^ Similarly, we must distinguish the sounds 
which one hears when a bell is rung from the suc- 
cession of sound waves (the stimulus) and the 
changes, 'the essential antecedents' of the sound 
sensation, which vhey produce in the organ of hear- 
ing and the connected parts of the nervous system. 

(3) Sensation and Knowledge of the Outside World. 
We have seen that some psychologists define sensa- 
tion as the consciousness of the qualities of material 
things, as of redness, blueness, coldness, sweetness, 
and so on. In this case, emphasis is laid upon the 
cognitive, or knowledge furnishing, function of sen- 
sations. "Sensations," we are told, "make us ac- 
quainted with innumerable material things." Pos- 
sibly this way of conceiving of sensation may be 



5 Stout. Manual, p. 118 f, 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 73 

made clearer by considering the answer which you 
probably would give to the question, "How did you 
learn of the existence of the things which make up 
the physical world, the things of earth and sky, 
plants, animals, clouds, the moon, the stars?" You 
would say, very likely, "through the senses," and 
your answer, while partial and incomplete, would 
be correct in the meaning that sensations are the 
essential elements, the raw material out of which 
your knowledge of the existence of the material 
world is constructed, and in the sense that without 
the matter given in sensation, you could have no 
such knowledge. A familiar illustration of the de- 
pendency of our knowledge of the external world 
upon sensations is found in the fact that a person 
blind from birth would never learn, unaided, of the 
existence of the moon and stars. Likewise, for a 
deaf-born person, soft music or thunder does not 
exist. Illustrations of this sort make it seem a mere 
commonplace to say that sensation is a necessary 
element of our knowledge of the physical world. 

It is of interest to note certain differences among sensations 
in respect to their value as basic material for knowledge of the 
external world. Contrast, for example, sight sensations with those 
of hunger, or thirst, or nausea. The former clearly "make us 
acquainted" with innumerable outside things, while the latter tell 
us little or nothing about the objects of the material world. In 
general we may say that the sensations of the special senses 
are rich in the elements of knowledge of things outside the body, 
while the organic sensations are poor. 

(4) Sensations as the Earliest Forms of Conscious- 
ness. — If we were able to recall the mental expe- 
riences of the first days or hours of our lives, prob- 



74 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ably we should find that they consisted largely of 
sensations, or rather of sensation masses. The 
baby's brain is at first wrapped in deep slumber, 
then roused to action by nerve impulses from sense- 
organs, whereupon the 'miracle of consciousness' 
bursts forth in the form of sensation. Accordingly, 
from the genetic point of view, sensations are 
marked off from other forms of mental experience 
as the first things in the way of consciousness. 

Pure Sensations. — "Pure sensations," says James, 
''can only be realized in the earliest days of life. 
They are all but impossible to adults with memo- 
ries and stores of associations acquired." Sensations 
springing up in the adult consciousness are forth- 
with referred either to the objects which are thought 
to cause them, or to some part of the body. Thus, 
the mental changes due to the rumble of a passing 
wagon, or to glancing out of the window at adjoin- 
ing buildings, or by an air current laden with odors 
from a bakerj^ awaken images or ideas of the wagon 
on the street, of houses out there, of the bake-shop 
across the way. In ordinary speech we say that the 
sensations suggest or revive the ideas of the objects 
which cause them. This occurs in the mind which 
has reached a certain stage of development. But 
it seems probable that in the first days or weeks of 
a baby's life its consciousness consists of nothing 
but sensations, or sensation complexes, (plus their 
accompanying feelings of pleasantness and unpleas- 
antness) , a mere sequence of flashes or shocks of 
lights and sounds, of touches and tastes, now a 
twinge of pain, now a pungent odor, now a sweet or 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 75 

bitter taste, now a shudder of cold, each pulse of 
sensation being independent of every other, inviting 
no comparisons, suggesting nothing, fading out and 
leaving no traces and so no memories of its having 
been — each one merely appearing in the wake of 
the appropriate physical processes and disappear- 
ing, leaving not a wrack behind. Such a mind would 
consist of a series of bare sensations, isolated from 
everything else in the world. Here we should find 
our 'pure' sensations, here we should find the expe- 
riences indicated by Condillac's striking phrase, 
quoted by James, "the first time we see light, we are. 
it rather than see it." 

It seems likely that the mental life of many of the lower 
animals consists wholly of a series of pure sensations, in 
the sense just described. A sensation in these creatures 
leaves no traces, it enters into no associations, it awakens 
no memories of former similar objects or experiences; its 
function is exhausted in exciting its appropriate motor re- 
sponse. 

The Differentiation of Sensory Qualities. — The 
consciousness resulting when nerve currents from 
a number of sensory sources pour into the newborn 
infant's brain is vividly pictured in James' oft- 
quoted sentence — "the baby, assailed by eyes, ears, 
nose, and entrails at once, feels it all as one big, 
blooming, buzzing Confusion." Probably impres- 
sions from the organs of taste, temperature, pres- 
sure, pain, and possibly others, reach the cortical 
areas from the first; but their total effect in con- 
sciousness is a vague, undifferentiated sensation 
mass. Now, in the course of mental development, 



76 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the individual's sensory experience undergoes differ- 
tiation, and this process follows in the main two 
directions. First, the great classes of sensations 
emerge; visual sensations, e. g., are no longer 
merged in a vague total consciousness, but gradually 
acquire distinctness and separateness in the infant's 
mental life. So with the other great groups of sen- 
sations — auditory, gustatory, olfactory, and so on ; 
each group is differentiated step by step from the 
other groups. 

Of course at this stage the child does not think of the 
differences themselves; he does not reflect, 'this experience is 
different from the immediately preceding one'. Thoughts of 
this kind belong to a distinctly higher level of mental de- 
velopment; they are sometimes called acts of conscious dis- 
crimination. Perhaps the distinction between the differen- 
tiation of sensory experiences and the consciousness of dif- 
ference between two sensations may be expressed by saying 
that in the former process different sensations are exper- 
ienced, while in the latter the nature of the difference is the 
subject of thought. In the former case, the difference exists 
in consciousness, but it is not an object of consciousness. 

A second form of differentiation of sensory expe- 
rience consists in the appearance of distinctions 
within the several sensation groups. For instance, 
the consciousness of blue is, in time, marked off 
from that of green; that of yellow, from orange; 
sour, from bitter; ethereal, from aromatic. Now, 
the capacity to experience more and more sensory 
qualities within the same sensation group reaches 
a very high degree of development, particularly in 
the fields of vision and hearing. Thus it is possible 
to distinguish more than 30,000 visual qualities and 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 77 

more than 11,000 different tones. Again, in addi- 
tion to the fundamental distinctions of the qualities 
of sensory experiences, distinctions of sensational 
intensity, extensity, and duration, gradually make 
their appearance, and with these the development 
of the individual's capacity for experiencing sensa- 
tion differences is completed. 

The Attributes of Sensation, — In everyday speech 
the word 'attribute' may relate either to the essen- 
tial or to the non-essential properties of objects. In 
the former case, the term refers to something with- 
out which a given object would cease to be; in the 
latter, it refers to something which seems to be at- 
tached, or added, to the essential stuff of which the 
object is constituted, and it may or may not be pres- 
ent. Thus it is an essential attribute of glass that 
it shall have weight; but brittleness, pliability, 
transparency, and opacity are classed among its 
non-essential attributes. Again, fluidity is an essen- 
tial attribute of water; with the disappearance of 
this attribute, water as water no longer exists, while 
coldness and warmth are two of its non-essential 
properties or attributes. Now, when the psychol- 
ogist speaks of the 'attributes' of a sensation he 
means its essential properties, those without which 
the sensation cannot come into being, those whose 
disappearance involves also the disappearance of 
the sensation. Thus it is clear that the reduction 
of any sensation's intensity to zero involves the dis- 
appearance of the sensation itself. Accordingly, 
intensity is included in the list of its essential prop- 
erties or attributes. In short, a sensation's attri- 
butes are inherent, and not adherent. 



78 ELEMENTS OP PSYCHOLOGY 

We may next enumerate and describe briefly the 
several attributes or essential properties of sensa- 
tions. Psychologists difl'er slightly as to what shall 
be included in such an enumeration, but we shall be 
on safe ground if we accept Titchener's list, which 
includes — quality, intensity, clearness, duration, 
and, in the case of certain sensations — extent. 

Quality. — Sensations are distinguished, named 
and classified primarily according to their qualities. 
Thus blue, red, salt, bitter, cold, warm, are names 
of sensation qualities ; the most obvious and striking 
differences and likenesses among sensations are 
differences and likenesses of quality. Again, quality 
is the basis of the classification of sensations as 
visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, and so on. 
'Quality,' says Kiilpe, *is the very essence of a sen- 
sation.' For these reasons some psychologists call 
quality the 'fundamental' attribute of sensation ; 
other psychologists, for similar reasons, call it the 
distinguishing, individualising sensation attribute. 

Intensity. — Every sensation has, besides its dis- 
tinctive quality, a certain intensity, or strength. 
Thus a given sensation of taste or sound or temper- 
ature may be extremely weak, barely sensible; or it 
may be of any degree of intensity between the lower 
limit where it is barely sensed and the upper limit 
of sensibility where it either ceases to grow in in- 
tensity or gives place to some other experience. 
Such expressions as — extremely cold, intensely bit- 
ter, barely warm, very faint (of sound) — relate to 
the attribute of intensity of these several sensations. 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 79 

Clearness. — We compare sensations in respect 
to the attribute of clearness when we say that one is 
.in the 'focus' or foreground of consciousness and 
that another is in the 'margin' or background. 
Sensations vary in respect to the attribute of clear- 
ness between the lower limit of the extremely ob- 
scure, the barely noticed, and the upper limit of 
clearness, where the sensation is the only thing in 
consciousness, where the sensation of the moment 
and consciousness are identical. 

Duration : Extent. — "Duration is the attribute of 
sensation that we attend to," says Titchener, "when 
we answer the questions: How long does it last? 
When does it appear? Has it gone out yet? Is it 
steady or interrupted?" 

Besides the four attributes just mentioned, cer- 
tain classes of sensation have also the attribute of 
extent which, to quote Titchener further, "is the 
aspect of sensation that w^e attend to when we are 

called upon to answer the questions 

how large is it? what shape has it? is it regular 
or irregular? large or small? continuous or patchy? 
uniform or broken?"^ 

Next we may inquire, have the various classes of 
sensations the same attributes? And we answer, 
still quoting Titchener: "All sensations, without ex- 
ception, possess the attributes of quality, intensity, 
clearness and duration." Only two groups of sen- 
sations — those of sight and pressure — have, beyond 
question, also the fifth attribute of our list, namely. 



''-Elementary Psychology of Feeling and Attention, 1908, Lec- 
ture I. 



80 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

extensity. For example, it would seem as nonsens- 
ical to inquire concerning the area or extent of a 
given odor or taste, as it would to ask, what color is 
it? Area, or extent, is not an attribute of the sen- 
sations of either smell or taste. On the other hand, 
it seems natural to describe visual and pressure sen- 
sations as extended. Indeed, to think away the ex- 
tensity, or area, of a visual or pressure sensation is 
to think away the sensation itself. 

The Classification of Sensations. — Sensations may 
be classified conveniently, though roughly, by refer- 
ence to the bodily organs immediately concerned in 
their production. Thus we have eye sensations, ear 
sensations, nose sensations, sensations from the cir- 
culatory system, and so on. Sensations may also be 
classified on the basis of their qualitative resem- 
blances. This principle is useful particularly in 
classifying the sensations from the so-called special 
sense-organs — the eye, ear, nose, mouth, tongue, 
and skin. Finally, sensations may be classified ac- 
cording to the stimuli which evoke them. In this 
case, sensations would fall into two great groups : 
(a) sensations from external stimuli, and (b) sen- 
sations whose stimuli consist in changes in the in- 
ternal bodily organs. But it must be said that in 
the present state of our knowledge, it is not possible 
to make an entirely satisfactory classification of the 
sensations, even by employing freely the three prin- 
ciples just stated. 

The table which follows makes no pretension of 
being scientifically complete; but it may give the 
student a provisional and general idea of the main 



SENSATION IN GENERAL 



81 



divisions of the field of our sensory experience. The 
first five groups of the table are called Sensations 
of the Special Senses; the remaining seven groups 
are Organic Sensations. 



SENSE ORGANS. 

1. The rods and cones of 

the retinae. 

2. The cochlea of the in- 

ternal ear. 

3. The nose. (The olfac- 

tory cells). 



4. The tongue, parts of the 
mouth and palate. 
(The taste buds). 



5. The skin. (The encap- 

sulated sensory nerve 
endings ; free nerve 
endings, see p. 59f ) . 

6. Vestibule and semicir- 

cular canals of the in- 
ternal ear. 

7. The muscles. 

8. The tendons. 

9. Surfaces of the joints. 

10. The alimentary canal. 

11. The circulatory system. 



12. The respiratory system. 



SENSATIONS. 

Visual sensations: 

(a) brightness, 

(b) color. 
Auditory sensations : 

(a) noises, > 

(b) tones. 
Olfactory sensations: 

(a) ethereal, 

(b) aromatic, 

(c) fragrant, etc. 
Gustatory sensations : 

(a) sweet, 

(b) sour, 

(c) salt, 

(d) bitter. 
Cutaneous sensations: 

(a) pressure, 

(b) warmth, 

(c) coldness, 

(d) pain. 

Sensations of movement and 
position. 

Muscular sensations: 
(pressure, fatigue?) 

Tendinous sensations. 

Articular sensations. 

The complex sensations of 
hunger, thirst, nausea, etc. 

The complex sensations of 
throbbing, oppression, shiv- 
ering. 

Sensations of stuffiness, suf- 
focation or of freshness 
and vigor. 



CHAPTER IV 

CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 
VISUAL SENSATIONS 

Classes of Visual Sensations. — There are two 
great systems, or series, of visual sensations — the 
color, or chromatic, series and the white-gray-black, 
or achromatic, series. The color system includes : 

(1) The principal colors — red, yellow, green, blue; 

(2) the intermediate hues, e. g., orange, olive, blue- 
green; (3) the sensations due to variations of tint 
and shade, e. g., pink, pale-green, brown; (4) the 
sensations due to variation of saturation or chroma, 
e. g., pure red, grayish red, pale, washed-out red. 
The achromatic system, known also as the bright- 
ness or light series, includes all distinguishable 
blacks and grays and whites from the deepest black 
to the brightest white. 

The normal human eye is capable of distinguish- 
ing about 700 qualities of brightness sensation 
('shades of gray' they are called sometimes) when 
they are arranged in a single series running from 
the deepest black to the most brilliant white. When 
all possible color-tones or hues, together with all 
possible variations of tint and shade and saturation 
are counted, we have more than 30,000 qualities of 
color. 

In our ordinary visual experience, the brightness 
series and the color series are so closely interrelated 

(82) 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 83 

that neither the difference between them nor their 
relative independence is noted. The nearest approach 
which Nature furnishes in human experience to a 
demonstration of the distinction is given (1) in the 
colorlessness of highly colored objects in peripheral 
vision, i. e., when they are seen 'out of the corner of 
the eye,' with the outer retinal zone; (2) in twilight 
vision, when the colors of objects about us fade out 
and the objects are seen as gray; (3) in cases of 
total color-blindness, where the subject's visual 
world contains no trace of color, but consists solely 
of varying degrees of blackness, grayness, and 
whiteness. But here the color system is not felt as 
different; it is simply non-existent. 

Two further observations which support the two- 
fold classification of visual sensations may be noted. 
One is that, in the ascending scale that marks the 
stages in the evolution of the organ of sight, appar- 
atus responsive to brightness differences appears 
before that which is responsive to color differences. 
The most primitive form of the eye is sensitive to 
variations of illumination, but is insensitive to vari- 
ations of color. Thus the so-called eye-specks of the 
jelly fish are sensitive to the difference between light 
and dark, black and white, but not to mere color 
changes. Further, students of animal behavior find 
many species of animals that have visual apparatus 
which is responsive to changes within the brightness 
series but which, apparently, is not affected by 
changes in the color series. Obviously, such obser- 
vations support the two-fold classification of visual 
sensations. Secondly, the relative independence of 
the two systems of visual sensations appears from 



84 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



the fact that, while every known color is interfused 
with some grade of brightness, there are many ob- 
jects which show no trace of color; they are white 
or black or some intermediate shade of gray. 

The Color Pyramid. — The two systems of visual 
sensations, the brightnesses and the colors, together 

with their interrelations, 
^^'^^ are represented by the 

double color pyramid. 
(Fig. 22). The figure 
consists, it will be ob- 
served, of two pyramids 
whose bases coincide. 
The dotted vertical line, 
connecting the two 
apexes, represents the 
white-gray-black series ; 
that is, we may think of 
all distinguishable grades 
of brightness between 
the deepest black and the 
brightest white as being 
arranged along this line. 

The capitals, 

R. Y. G. B., at the four 
corners of the base 
stand for the principal 
colors — red, yellow, 
green, and blue ; the cap- 
itals, V. P. 0. YG. and 
BG. on the lines connecting the four corners of the 
base, represent a few of the distinguishable inter- 
mediate hues — violet, purple, orange, yellowish- 




Bteck 



Fig. 22. The Color Pyramid. 
(After Titchener ; A Text- 
Book of Psychology, Fig". 2.) 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 85 

green, blue-green — of which there are in all 150 
or more. The lines running from the four corners 
of the base to each of the two poles of the W B 
(white-black) line, represent the variations of tint 
and shade. Thus, along the line from R to W lie the 
light reds and pinks ; from R to B, the dark reds ; 
from G to W, the light greens; from G to B, the 
dark greens, and so on. The lines running from the 
four corners and the four sides of the base to its 
center, the point at which it is pierced by the white- 
gray-black line, represent the varying degrees of 
saturation, or chroma. Thus, at the outer end of 
each of these lines we may imagine a 'pure' color, 
one with the least admixture of light; as we ap- 
proach the center, the point of middle gray, the color 
becomes paler, grayish, washed out, till we reach the 
center, where it entirely disappears. 

It was stated a moment ago that the vast multi- 
tude of visual sensations arise through the varia- 
tions in hue or color-tone, in tint or brightness, and 
in saturation. It was also said that the number of 
distinguishable hues around the base of medium 
tint and maximal saturation is estimated to be one 
hundred and fifty. It has been stated, further, that 
the total number of visual color qualities is more 
than 30,000. Turning again to the pyramid, let us 
try to form an idea of the conditions of their occur- 
rence. First, let us think of the variations in color 
quality due to variations in shade and tint, or 
brightness. Begin with the middle tint of any one 
of the principal colors, say blue, and work along the 
lines leading upward to bright white and downward 
to deep black, and we get a number of tints of blue 



86 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in the one case, and shades in the other. The vari- 
ations in tint and shade may also be worked out for 
the other principal colors, red, yellow, and green. 
Further, each one of one hundred and fifty imagin- 
ary lines, which we may suppose to pass on the sur- 
face of the pyramid from W to B, and through 
points on the edges of the base, representing the 
150 intermediate hues referred to above, may be 
gone over in the same way, working out the shades 
and tints for each hue. It is clear that even if our 
task ended here we should have discovered a vast 
number of color qualities. But this is only a begin- 
ning. Suppose that we pare away, except at the 
two poles, the outer layer of the pyramid, which 
represents the colors of deepest saturation, then we 
should have the same sort of a task as at first, except 
that in the latter case we should be working with 
color-tones that are less saturated. By continuing 
paring along the planes of each new discernible 
difference of saturation and by working through for 
each color-tone the shades and tints of each new 
plane of saturation, we shall find the total number 
of distinguishable color qualities, 30,000, more or 
less. 

Color Mixture. — If a beam of sunlight is passed 
through a glass prism, it breaks up into a band of 
colors — violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, 
and red — known as the spectral colors. Conversely, 
if, under certain conditions, rays of light corre- 
sponding to these various colors are passed through 
a prism they produce a beam of light like that which 
when dispersed forms the spectrum. Accordingly, 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 87 

white light is said to be formed by the union of all 
the spectral colors. The science of optics teaches, 
further, that a light sensation may be produced by 
the union of certain colors selected from the total 
number given in the spectrum. Thus, under proper 
conditions, a combination of the four colors, red, 
yellow, green and blue, will produce the sensation 
of light. Certain other interesting discoveries in 
this field are: (1) that every color has a comple- 
mentary, which, if mixed with it in the proper pro- 
portions, produces a sensation of colorless light or 
brightness (gray). Two colors whose mixture pro- 
duces gray are said to be 'complementary' colors. 
The following pairs of complementary colors may 
serve as examples : 

Red and bluish green. 
Orange and greenish blue. 
Yellow and blue. 
Yellowish green and violet. 
Green and purple. 

(2) The mixture of two colors which are not com- 
plementaries produces an intermediate color. Thus 
a mixture (in the proper proportions) of red and 
yellow gives orange ; of red and blue, violet. 

(3) Newton's law of color mixture, as formulated 
by Titchener, is as follows : 

"If two colour mixtures arouse the same sensation of 
light or color, then a mixture of these mixtures will also 
arouse that sensation. If, for instance, the grey produced 
by a mixture of carmine and bluish green is the same as 
that produced by a mixture of red and verdigris, then this 



88 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



grey will also result from the mixture, in the original pro- 
portions, of all four colours." ^ 

Figure 23 represents the colors of the spectrum, 
together with purple (which is produced by a mix- 
ture of red and violet) and their various relations. 
The unshaded sectors represent the four principal 




-5l/s/&n7g;- "^ 



Fig. 23. The color circle. (After Angell ; Psychology, Fig. 46.) 
The colors at the opposite ends of any diameter of the circle, 
when mixed, produce gray. 

psychological colors ; the shaded sectors represent 
intermediate colors. 

Visual After-images. — As a rule, the effects of a 
sensory stimulus last a little while after the stimulus 
ceases to act upon the sense organ. In the field of 
our visual sensations, where this phenomenon is 



^Text-Book of Psychology, 1910, p. 69 f. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 89 

especially noticeable, the lingering effect occurs in 
one of two forms, namely, either as a positive or as a 
negative after-sensation, or 'after-image,' it is called 
by most psychologists. In the positive after-image, 
'the relations of light and shade of the original ob- 
ject are preserved,' i, e., those parts of the original 
object which are light appear light, and those which 
are dark appear shaded, in the after-image. Further, 
the positive after-image of a colored object is usually 
of the same color as the object. After one's atten- 
tion is once called to the matter, after-images of 
this kind seem to be of pretty frequent occurrence, 
or, at any rate, with a little care one may readily 
detect them. Thus, if one looks at a bright object, 
such as the sun or an electric light for an instant, 
then closes the eyes, an after-image of the sun or 
light persists for a time, and, in the experience of 
many observers, flits about in space with the move- 
ments of the eyes. A more impressive instance of 
the positive after-image may be obtained by care- 
lessly looking from one's room for an instant, not 
more than a second, through a window, then closing 
and covering the eyes. Presently there appears an 
image of the window — dark frame, cross-pieces, if 
any, grayish spaces corresponding to the window- 
glass — all reduced somewhat in brightness, but in 
the same relations of brightness one to another as 
in the window itself. A most interesting feature 
of this experiment is the looming up in the image 
of objects which were not noted in the momentary 
glance, or which have never been noted, even though 
one may have looked through the same window in 



90 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



the same careless way scores of times. The things 
were there all the while, their images were im- 
pressed upon the retinae, but hitherto we have not 
seen them. 

In the negative after-image of a given object the 
relations of light and shade are reversed, i. e., what 
was light or bright in the object becomes dark or 

grayish in the image, 
and what was dark 
or shaded, becomes 
bright. Thus if one 
looks steadily at a 
fixed point of a win- 
dow-pane for a period 
of thirty or forty sec- 
onds, then at a white 
r unfigured wall, 
presently an image of 
the window appears in 
which the light parts 
of the window appear 
dark, and the dark 
parts light. (At this 
point the student should perform the experiment 
with Figure 24). Moreover, in the negative after- 
image of a colored object the color is usually the 
complementary of the original. Thus, if one places 
a small piece (one inch square) of colored paper, 
say red or blue, on a sheet of white paper, and looks 




FIG. 24. (By the courtesy of Har- 
megines & Howell, Printers, Chi- 
cago.) Directions for experiment 
at the bottom of this page. 



Look steadily at the star under the eye in the figure above while 
you count slowly up to 25 or 30 ; then look at the center of a sheet 
of white paper and you will see, after a moment or so, the face 
of a well known American. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 91 

steadily at it for fifteen or twenty seconds, then 
looks away to some other part of the white sheet, 
one sees a patch of color of the same general shape 
and size as the original, but strikingly different in 
color — greenish if the original was red and yellow- 
ish if the original was blue. To repeat: the essen- 
tial points to remember are, (1) that the general 
difference between positive and negative after-im- 
ages is that in the former the relations of light and 
shade are the same as those of the original object 
and that the colors are usually the same; and (2) 
that in the negative after-image, the relations of 
light and shade are reversed, and the colors are 
usually the complementaries, or opposites, of those 
of the original object. 

Color Blindness.^ — It is well known that many 
persons are incapable of distinguishing between cer- 
tain colors ; they are more or less color-blind. This 
defect may exist in varying degrees from slight im- 
perfection of the color-sense to total color blindness 
in which consciousness of colors is entirely lacking 
and the things of the external world are seen merely 
in varying shades of gray. 

Students of color-blindness tell us that it is diffi- 
cult, or even impossible, to make a satisfactory 
classification of these phenomena, and for the reason 
that 'hardly any two instances of color-blindness are 
precisely alike.' But, neglecting individual differ- 
ences, color-blindness may be classified, first, as 



1 The following' paragraphs on Color Blindness are based on 
Howell's discussion of this topic. See Howell, A Text-Book of 
Physiology, 1909, p. 345 ff. 



92 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

either total or partial. Total color-blindness, as has 
been remarked already, is insensitiveness to color, 
and obviously, it has no subdivisions. Partial color 
blindness, on the other hand, occurs in either of two 
forms — red-green or violet blindness — the former 
being by far the more frequent. Persons who are 
red-green blind distinguish in the spectrum only 
yellows and blues. "The red, orange, yellow, and 
green appear as yellow of different shades, the 
green-blue as gray, and the blue-violet and purple 

as blue When the spectrum is examined 

by such persons a neutral gray band is seen at the 
junction of blue and green In red- 
blindness the most characteristic defect is a failure 
to see or to appreciate the green. This color is con- 
fused with the grays and Avith dull shades of red." 
The green-blind are also red-green blind; they con- 
fuse reds and greens, and in the spectrum are con- 
scious of only two color qualities — namely, yellow 
and blue. . . . "Violet blindness," still following 
Howell, "seems to be so rare as a congenital and 
permanent condition that no very exact study of it 
has been made. In cases of acquired violet blind- 
ness resulting from pathological changes it is re- 
ported that the violet end of the spectrum is color- 
less and that a colorless band appears also in the 
yellow-green region of the spectrum." 

Statistics : Inheritance. — Investigators differ 
as to the percentage of color-blindness in our mod- 
ern communities ; but the statistics leave no doubt 
that the defect is far more prevalent than is gen- 
erally known. Perhaps it would be safe to say that, 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 93 

on the average, in a community consisting of four 
hundred males and four hundred females twelve 
of the former and two of the latter will be found to 
be color-blind. 

Curiously the defect may be inherited ; and, 'since 
females are less liable to be affected than males, it 
often happens that the daughters of a color-blind 
person, themselves with normal vision, have sons 
who inherit their grandfather's infirmity."^ 

Practical Considerations. ^ — The practical impor- 
tance of determining whether a given person's color 
vision is normal has been emphasized in recent 
years by the discovery that accidents by rail and at 
sea are due in some cases to the inability of engi- 
neers and pilots to distinguish the lights ordinarily 
used for signals. And it is now the general prac- 
tice of the managers of railways and shipping com- 
panies to require tests for color-blindness of all their 
employes who are responsible for the interpretation 
of lights used in signaling. For example, the writer 
knows a skilled oculist who gives a large part of his 
time to testing for color vision defects the employes 
of a great railway corporation. School officials and 
teachers are also beginning to realize that color- 
blind pupils cannot engage profitably in certain 
school exercises, and that methods of teaching, suit- 
able for the children whose vision is normal, are 
unsuitable for those who are color-blind. 

Tests for Color Blindness. — Because of these prac- 
tical considerations, a number of methods of testing 
for color-blindness have been proposed and used 



' Donaldson^ American Text-Book of Physiology, vol. II, p. 330. 



94 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

with varying success. One of the simplest and best 
— the Holmgren — is thus described by Howell : 

"A number of skeins of wool are used and three test 
colors are chosen, — namely, (I) a pale pure green skein, 
which must not incline toward yellow green; (II) a medium 
purple (magenta) skein; and (III) a vivid red skein. The 
person under investigation is given skein I and is asked to 
select from the pile of assorted colored skeins those that 
have a similar color value. He is not to make an exact 
match, but to select those that appear to have the same 
color. Those who are red or green blind will see the test 
skein as a gray with some yellow or blue shade and will 
select, therefore, not only the green skeins, but the grays or 
gTayish yellow and blue skeins. To ascertain whether the 
individual is red or green blind tests II and III may then be 
employed. 

"With test II, medium purple, the red blind will select, 
in addition to other purples, only blues or violets; the green 
blind will select as 'confusion colors' only greens and grays. 

"With test III, red, the red blind will select as confusion 
colors greens, grays, or browns less luminous than the test 
color, while the green blind will select greens, grays, or 
browns of a greater brightness than the test," 

The Color Zones of the Retina. — Besides the two 
forms of abnormal color-blindness described in the 
preceding paragraphs, there are also certain forms 
which are normal, i. e., are phenomena of the activ- 
ity of the normal eye. Thus if we think of the 
retina as being divided into three zones, we may then 
say that the outermost zone is defective in its reac- 
tions to all color impressions — objects seen with this 
part of the retina ordinarily appear as light or dark 
patches — that the middle or intermediate zone Is 



1 Howell, A Text-Book of Physiology, 1909, 347 f. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 



95 




blind to all colors except blues and yellows ; and that 
the central zone or area alone furnishes all color 
qualities. (See Fig. 25). It should be remembered 

that the failure of a 
given object to arouse 
a color sensation does 
not mean necessarily 
that the object is not 
seen at all. We are 
all the while aware 
through sight of the 
presence of innumer- 
able objects lying in 
the outskirts of the 
field of vision, of 
whose colors, at the 
moment, we know 
nothing. They are 
seen as light or dark 
or grey objects, and 
we can tell nothing 
definite about their 
colors without looking 
directly at them. This 
may be shown roughly 
by the following simple experiment: 

As you sit at your study-table, stand a blue-covered book 
at the left end of the table-top, then place to the right of 
the blue-book, at a distance of twenty inches, a green-cov- 
ered one; then look steadily at the center of the cover of 
the blue book and observe that you cannot tell the color of 
the book on the right. Of course you know that it is green, 
but you see it merely as a patch of dark, not as a green as 



Fig. 25. Diagram representing the 
fields of vision for gray (G), 
blue, yellow (BY), red and green 
(RG), of right eye. Correspond- 
ing to these fields are the three 
retinal zones: (1) the central 
zone which is sensitive to all col- 
ors and brightnesses; (2) the in- 
termediate zone in which only 
blues, yellows, and brightnesses 
can be seen; (3) the outermost 
zone over which all colored ob- 
jects look gray. 



96 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

you do when you look directly at it. "Again," to quote Sea- 
shore, "if we look steadily at one flower in a flower-bed and 
attempt, without movement of the eyes, to see the coloration 
of the whole bed, we observe that, outside of a certain 
narrow limit, the leaves do not look green; beyond a some- 
what larger limit, no flowers are seen red, although the 
blue and yellow ones look brilliant; and in the outermost 
parts of the bed all flowers and leaves look gray." ^ 

By way of caution, it should be said that the color 
zones of the retina, and the corresponding 'color 
fields', as they are called, vary greatly from individ- 
ual to individual, and also with differences in the 
nature of the objects seen. Thus in regard to the 
individual differences, it is said that the distribution 
of the color elements in no two retinas is precisely 
the same ; and Howell suggests- that since the color- 
fields of no two persons are precisely alike, it is 
possible that a test of the color-fields might be used 
for the identification of individuals, in the same way 
that 'thumb-prints' are now used for this purpose. 
In regard to the second ground of variation of the 
color fields it may be remarked in general that the 
larger, the brighter, the more saturated are the 
colors seen, the larger will be the color fields. 

The interesting theory has been advanced that the 
existence of three retinal zones indicates that there 
have been three stages, or epochs, in the evolution 
of the organ of vision. During the first epoch an 
eye was developed which was sensitive only to dif- 
ferences of brightness ; during a second epoch, cen- 



'^ Elementary Experiments in Psychology, 1908, 27 
^ Text-Book of Physiology, p. 34S. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 97 

tral elements of the retina became sensitive to yel- 
lows and blues, and gradually spread, during evo- 
lutionary ages, from the central region toward the 
periphery of the retina. During a third epoch, 
according to the theory, sensitiveness to reds and 
greens was developed in the central portion of the 
retina. Thus there have been developed the three 
color zones as they exist at present in the normal 
human eye. Some writers indulge in the curious 
speculation that in some future age all parts of the 
retina, excepting the blind spot, will be sensitive to 
all color impressions, and that the appearance of an 
eye possessing color zones, such as have been de- 
scribed above, will then be regarded as an atavistic 
phenomenon, reminiscent of the long past age to 
which we now belong. 

AUDITORY SENSATIONS. 

Nature of the Stimulus. — Sensations of sound are 
caused ordinarily by vibrations of the air. These 
air waves, or sound-waves, as they are also called, 
differ in respect to (1) wave-length or rapidity of 
vibration; (2) wave-amplitude, and (3) wave-form 
or composition. When the wave-length is small, 
when the distance from crest to crest is short, the 
vibration rate is rapid, and the number of wave? 
in the one second is high. Conversely, increasing 
the distance from wave-crest to wave-crest lowers 
the rate of vibration, and so the number of waves 
in the one second. Difference in rate of vibration, 
or wave-number, is represented in Fig. 26 A. The 



98 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



rate of vibration represented by the dotted line is 
twice that represented by the unbroken line. 

Wave-amplitude refers to the extent of the wave 
oscillation above and below an imaginary horizontal 
line. In Fig. 26 B the waves are the same in rate, 
but different in amplitude. 






Air-waves may be simple and regular like those 
represented in Figs. A and B, or they may be com- 
plex, made up of two or more simple waves as shown 
in Fig. 26 C. The large, complex waves may be con- 
ceived of as composed of a number of smaller ones. 
Complex waves are often likened to the waves which 
pass along a rope when it is jerked up and down by 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 99 

a trembling hand. The smaller waves caused by 
the trembling enter into the larger movement and 
change it from a smooth to a wavy line. 

Classes of Auditory Sensations. — There are two 
great classes of auditory sensations — tones and 
noises. They differ, according to Titchener, chiefly 
in the fact that tones "have a certain clarity and 
stability," whereas "noises . . . are dull and 
instable; if momentary, they are abrupt and harsh, 
if continued, they are rough and turbid." Sensa- 
tions of tone may be experienced without accom- 
panying noise; "but it is difficult to decide," says 
Titchener, "whether sensations of noise occur with- 
out accompanying tones." 

Noises are distinguished by Titchener as "explo- 
sive" and "continuative." "For the former we have 
such words as crack, pop, snap ; for the latter such 
words as hiss, sputter, rumble." 

Attributes of Tones. — Tone sensations show five 
attributes: quality (pitch), volume, intensity, clear- 
ness and duration. Pitch refers to the position of a 
tone on a scale rising from the lowest, deepest tones 
to the highest ones. The pitch of a tone is deter- 
mined by the length of the air-waves or the vibra- 
tion rate of the sounding body which causes it. 
Short waves (high vibration rate, large wave-num- 
ber) , correspond to tones of high pitch ; long waves 
(low vibration rate, small wave-number) , corre- 
spond to tones of low pitch. 

Authors differ somewhat as to the range of audible tones, 
i. e., the lowest and highest vibration rates which produce 
tones that can be heard. Titchener places twelve vibrations; 



100 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

as the lowest and fifty thousand as the highest. In other 
words, exceptional ears can hear the extremely low tones 
produced by twelve vibrations per second, and the extremely 
high tones produced by fifty thousand vibrations per second. 
The same author teaches that, 'between these extremes the 
trained ear can distinguish some eleven thousand different 
tones', and that the tones of the musical scale range between 
'the limits of about forty and four thousand vibrations in 
the one second*. 

In the second place, tones differ in respect to size 
or volume. Some tones, like those of a great pipe- 
organ, are large, massive, space-filling; others, e. g., 
the peep of a newly hatched chick, or a high note 
of the violin, are small, sharp, pointed. Generally 
speaking, the deep tones seem voluminous, and very 
easily lead us to think of a wide-spread commotion, 
the tone-shocking of a large air-space, whereas the 
high tones seem small and concentrated, and we 
think they might easily be confined within small 
limits. It may be remarked that in the writer's 
experience the high tones seem more like fine lines 
shooting through space, than a commotion in a 
merely small, relatively stationary, spatial area. 

Thirdly, tones differ in intensity, depending upon 
differences in the amplitude of the sound waves 
which cause them. Of two tones of the same pitch 
one may be weak or faint, the other, strong or loud. 

Fourth, tones appear, in the conscious field, as 
either focal or marginal, or at some intermediate 
point. 

Lastly, and obviously, a tone must have a certain 
duration, it must last a longer or shorter period of 
time. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 101 

Classes of Tones. — Besides the simple, or pure 
tones such as are produced from tuning-forks 
mounted on properly tuned resonators, text-books 
of psychology usually describe a number of tonal 
experiences which are dependent upon the various 
relations in which tonal sensations occur. Thus 
there are compound tones, difference tones, conso- 
nant and dissonant tones, and so on. The conditions 
of the occurrence of each of these classes mentioned 
will be described briefly. 

Compound Tones: Timbre. — The sound waves 
which arouse sensations of tone are usually complex 
in the sense described above, (p. 98f ) and the result- 
ing tone is compound in that it is possible, after 
practice, to resolve it into a number of partial tones, 
the lowest of which is termed the fundamental, and 
the rest the upper partials, or over-tones. The 
fundamental tone depends upon the larger wave- 
movement of the sounding body, e. g., a piano wire 
or violin string; the partial tones depend upon the 
quivering movement which forms a part of the 
larger wave movement. The pitch of a compound 
tone is approximately that of its fundamental. 

Timbre. — The overtones of notes of the same 
pitch, sounded on different musical instruments, e. 
g., a piano, a flute, an organ, differ in respect to 
their number and relative intensity. These differ- 
ences give rise to differences of 'timbre.' 

"Most of us", says Titchener, "lack the training, and some 
lack the ability, to resolve a compound tone into its simple 
components. Under these circumstances, the tone itself is 



102 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

heard as simple, but has upon it a certain colouring or 
timbre, which varies with the various instruments." 

Harmonic Intervals: Beats. — Two tones of the 
same pitch, heard at the same time, fuse into a sin- 
gle tone of the same pitch, but of greater intensity. 
Two simultaneous tones, one of which depends upon 
a vibration rate exactly twice that of the other, the 
octave of the musical scale, tend to blend into a sin- 
gle tone. Tones which thus blend are said to be con- 
sonant or harmonious. Other ratios of vibration 
rate which produce consonant tones are : 3:2,4: 3, 
5 : 3, or the fifth, fourth, the major sixth, and so on, 
in other words, the musical intervals of the musical 
scale. 

If the pitch-number of one of two simultaneously 
sounding tones is slightly higher than that of the 
other, the resulting sensation 'shows rhythmical 
fluctuations of intensity' ; 'the sound is heard now to 
grow louder and then to grow fainter or even to 
die away, but soon to revive again, and once more 
to fall away, thus rising and falling at regular 
intervals, the rhythmic change being either from 
sound to actual silence or from a louder sound to a 
fainter one." These rhythmical fluctuations of in- 
tensity are known as beats. 

Difference Tones.^ — Under certain conditions two simul- 
taneous tones are accompanied by other tones 'for which', 
says Stout, 'there is no assignable physical stimulus'. 'If, 
quoting Titchener, 'we term the upper generating tone u, 
and the lower I, we hear, in general, a third tone whose 
pitch-number is u-l. This is known as the first difference 
tone Di. Under favorable circumstances, a sing-le pair of 
tones will give rise to no less than five difference tones, 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 103 

whose pitch-numbers correspond to the successive diiferences 
between the pitch-numbers of the lowest tones present in 
the complex. Thus, let u be a tone of 1328 and I a tone of 
1024 vs. (c'). Then we have 

Di = u — 1 = 304 

D, = 1 _ Di = 2 1 — u = 720 
D:, = D. — D, = 3 1 — 2u = 416 
D4 = D, — D, = 4 1 — 8u = 112 
Dr, = D, — D4 = 4u — 5 1 = 192 

all of which may be rendered audible to the practised ear." 

SENSATIONS OF SMELL 

The Organ of Smell. — We have seen on a preced- 
ing page (62) that the fibrils of the olfactory nerve 
terminate in the olfactory cells, the end-organs for 
the sense of smell. The organ of smell may be 
further described as a small patch of brownish- 
yellow mucous membrane in the extreme upper part 
of the nasal cavity. This patch, called the olfactory 
surface, contains two kinds of cells : the olfactory 
cells proper, set amongst the larger, supporting 
epithelial cells. The olfactory cells are described 
as spindle-shaped and as terminating at the external 
surface of the olfactory region in hair-like processes, 
or cilia. (Fig. 18, p. 62.) 

The Olfactory Stimulus. — In order to act upon the 
organ of smell, a substance must exist in the form 
of gas or vapor. Even substances like cologne and 
ammonia, which, in the vaporous form, give strong 
odors, are inodorous in the fluid form; and arsenic, 



1 Text-Book of Psychology, p. 106 f. 



104 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

which is usually thought to be odorless, is intensely 
odorous when it is vaporized by heating. Needless 
to say, olfactory stimuli ordinarily reach the olfac- 
tory region in the act of inspiration. If we wish to 
examine carefully the quality of a given odor, or to 
get more pleasure from an agreeable one, we deflect' 
the incoming air currents upwards by sniffing. 

Relations of Sensations of Smell to Other Sensa- 
tions. — Many olfactory stimuli are peculiar in that 
they usually arouse, besides characteristic smells, 
other sensations which are ordinarily confused with 
the former. Thus the sweet taste of inhaled chlo- 
roform, the pungency of pepper, the pain from a 
sniff of ammonia, the nausea caused by decaying 
animal matter, are not easily distinguished from 
the accompanying odors. So we have the common 
expressions, 'sweet smell,' 'pungent,' 'painful,' 'nau- 
seous odors,' meaning, in strictness, the sweetness, 
pungency, and so on of the sensations which accom- 
pany the odors. 

Classification of Sensations of Smell. — The classifi- 
cation of the sensations of smell given below is the 
one first proposed by the naturalist, Linnaeus, and 
afterwards modified by Zwaardemaker and Titch- 
ener.^ 

1. Ethereal or Fruit Odours. — All fruit and wine 
odours; the scents of the various ethers; the smell of bees- 
wax. 

2. Aromatic or Spice Odours. — All spicy smells : cam- 
phor, turpentine, cloves, ginger, pepper, bay leaves, cinna- 



1 Text-Book of Psychology^ p. 117 f. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 105 

mon, caraway, anise, peppermint, lavender, bitter almonds, 
rosemary, sassafras; thyme, geranium, bergamot; rosewood, 
cedarwood, etc. 

3. Fragrant or Flower Odours. — All flower scents ; va- 
nilla, tonka bean, tea, hay; gum benzoin, etc. 

4. Ambrosiac or Musky Odours. - — Musk, ambergris, 
sandalwood, patchouli. 

5. Alliaceous or Leek Odours. — Onion, garlic, asa- 
foetida; india-rubber, dried fish, chlorine, iodine. 

6. Empyreumatic or Burned Odours. — Roasted coffee, 
toast, tobacco smoke, tar, burned horn, carbolic acid, naph- 
thalene, benzine, creosote. 

7. Hircine or Rank Odours. — Stale cheese, valerian, 
root and stem of barberry and black currant, lactic acid. 

8. Virulent and Foul Odours. — Opium, laudinum, French 
marigold, fresh coriander seeds, squash bugs. 

9. Nauseous Odours. — Carrion flowers, water from 
wilted flower stems, decaying animal matter. 

This classification is confessedly unsatisfactory 
and provisional. 

"It is unsatisfactory," says Titchener, "first, because 
there are many odours that cannot certainly be classed 
under any one of the nine headings; and, secondly, because 
the odours under certain headings (1 and 3, or 2 and 4) 
seem to be more nearly related than are particular odours 
under a single heading (2 or 6). Nevertheless it serves to 
give an idea of the immense range and variety of the olfac- 
tory qualities." 

SENSATIONS OF TASTE 

Organs of Taste. — For a brief description of the 
organs of taste, see above page 61 and Fig. 17. 

In reference to the distribution of the taste-bulbs, 
Ladd remarks that, "there is scarcely a spot from 



106 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the lips to the stomach which some physiologist has 
not described as belonging to the organ of taste;" 
and while not all of these individual accounts have 
been corroborated, it is now generally agreed that 
the taste-bulbs are more widely distributed than 
merely on the surface of the tongue, as is popularly 
supposed. Besides occurring at the root of the 
tongue, where they are most numerous, and along 
its edges and at the top, taste-bulbs are found in 
certain other parts of the mouth and throat, e. g., 
on the soft palate, on the epiglottis, in the interior 
of the larnyx, and, in children, in the mucous mem- 
brane of the cheeks. Curiously, in adult life, a cen- 
tral area of varying size, on the upper surface of the 
tongue, is insensitive to taste stimuli. 

Classes and Relations of Taste Sensations.— There 
are four elementary kinds of tastes : sour, sweet, 
salt, bitter. Every taste experience belongs to one 
of these classes, or is a compound of these elemen- 
tary qualities. Our gustatory experience, however, 
seems to possess far greater variety and complexity 
than could possibly be obtained by the blending in 
every conceivable way of these four elementary 
tastes ; and observation of the matter shows that 
what we commonly call tastes are, in fact, com- 
pounds of taste with other sensory qualities, chiefly 
odors, warmth, cold, and touch (pressure). Take, 
for instance, the so-called taste of coffee, which is 
composed, in fact, of a certain bitter taste, a charac- 
teristic odor, a sensation of cold or warmth, sensa- 
tions of pressure and wetness, and, if one is unaccus- 
tomed to the beverage, an unpleasant puckery sen- 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 107 

sation. So of most of the 'tastes' ; they are com- 
pounds of tastes with other sensations ; and, as has 
been remarked in the section on Smell, many so- 
called tastes are really chiefly smells. This is true 
of the 'taste' of most meats and vegetables. 

Illustrative of the results which are often obtained 
by mixing taste and smell stimuli, Titchener cites 
the pharmacist's directions 

"to take castor oil or cod-liver oil in claret or lemonade; the 
sour taste corrects the nauseating or hircine odour. Qui- 
nine, which tastes bitter and has no smell, is corrected by 
essence of orange peel, which has an aromatic smell and no 
taste. In all sorts of children's medicines, a disagreeable 
odour is offset by a sweet taste, or a disagreeable taste by 
some pleasant odour." 

"The observations of every-day life," says Titch- 
ener, "which seem to show that certain tastes, e. g., 
sour and sweet, are antagonistic, and that certain 
others, e. g., bitter and salt, may exist side by side," 
are, for certain reasons, specified in his Text-Book, 
untrustworthy.^ 

CUTANEOUS SENSATIONS 

The skin contains four distinct kinds of sense- 
organs: those, namely, of pressure (contact), 
warmth, cold, and pain. Accordingly, what in 
everyday speech is spoken of as the 'sense of touch' 
really includes at least four kinds of sense-expe- 
rience. Indeed, these distinctions are found in such 
expressions as, 'the stove is warm', 'the ice is cold. 



lA Text-Booh of Psychology, § 36. 



108 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to touch,' 'their touch affrights me as a serpent's 
sting,' 'the lightest touch of thistles is painful' ; but 
instead of referring each of these experiences to a 
separate sense-organ, they are thought popularly to 
be due to different ways in which the same organ, 
the skin surface, is affected. We shall consider 
briefly the cutaneous senses in the order just given. 

Sensations of Pressure. — The end-organs of pres- 
sure are distributed over practically the whole ex- 
tent of the skin. In those regions where hairs are 
found — that is, on nearly every part of the skin sur- 
face — hair bulbs are the organs of pressure ; on the 
hairless regions, for instance on the palms of the 
hands and soles of the feet, the pressure organs are 
the corpuscles of Meissner, referred to above, p. 59. 
The 'pressure spots', as they are called, may be 
found by working over a given portion of skin sur- 
face with a finely pointed tooth-pick, or better, a 
horse-hair point which is made by attaching a bit 
of hair from the mane or tail of a horse to the end 
of a small stick, such as a match. When the pres- 
sure spots are touched lightly, one gets a sensation 
of mere contact, of 'something there' ; if the pres- 
sure is increased the sensation presently becomes 
granular; 'it is', says Tichener, 'as if you were 
pressing upon a small hard seed imbedded in the 
substance of the skin'. 

The distribution of the pressure spots differs in 
different parts of the skin surface. The number, 
per square centimeter, is said to vary from 8 or 9 
on the upper arm to 300 on the scalp. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 109 

Sensations of Temperature: the Cold and Warm 
Spots. — Draw the point of a lead pencil lightly over 
the inner surface of the fore-arm and note that you 
get alternating sensations of pressure and flashes 
of cold. The flashes of cold seem, for the moment, 
to obscure the sensation of pressure, then pass away 
and one feels only the contact; or, if the pressure 
is very light, some of the areas yield no sensation 
whatever. 

The warm spots may be found by slowly drawing 
the point of a nail (heated in hot, but not boiling 
water) over the wrist or the back of the hand. The 
warm spots are more difficult to find than the cold, 
'partly because the warmed point quickly cools and 
partly because the sensations themselves are duller 
and less insistent than those of cold,' they do not 
force themselves to the focus of consciousness as do 
the flashes of cold of the preceding experiment. 

The end-organs of temiperature, like those of pres- 
sure, are found over the whole extent of the skin. 
Their distribution differs in different regions of the 
skin area; but there are, according to Titchener,. 
about thirteen cold spots and two warm spots to the 
square centimeter. 

Two results of the experimental study of the tempera- 
ture senses are curious enough to warrant special mention. 
One is that if we touch a cold spot with a nail warmed to 
45° C. (113° F.) no sensation results; but if the nail is 
warmer than 45° C, we get a sensation not of warmth, as 
one might expect, but of cold. No satisfactory explanation 
has been given of this 'paradoxical sensation of cold' as it 
is called. 'Paradoxical sensations of warmth, — sensations 



110 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

aroused at the warm spots by a very cold stimulus, — havfe 
never been observed in the normal subject.' The second is 
that heat or hotness is not, as is generally supposed, a high 
degree of warmth, but is a third kind of temperature exper- 
ience, and results from the simultaneous stimulation of cold 
and warmth nerves by a stimulus above 45° C. The sensa- 
tion of heat which is seemingly a simple and unanalysable 
experience may be analysed, under proper conditions, into 
the two component sensations — warmth and cold. 

Sensation o£ Pain. — The sensation of pain, the 
disagreeableness or hurt which is caused by the in- 
tensive stimulation of a pain spot, must be care- 
fully distinguished from the 'feeling' of pain, or un- 
pleasantness. "Pain sensations are,' as Seashore 
remarks, 'nearly always unpleasant, but not all un- 
pleasant experiences are painful, (Thus) it is 
exceedingly unpleasant to overturn one's cup of 
coffee at dinner, but it is not necessarily painful 
unless one happens to be scalded by the liquid." 
We must also distinguish the cutaneous sensations 
of pain, with which we are now concerned, from the 
pains which are derived from the tissues lying be- 
neath the skin and which are usually referred to 
some definite internal organ, e. g., the stomach, or 
heart, or a nerve, as their seat. 

Pains as sensations differ in respect to (1) inten- 
sity — they may vary from faint to the extremely 
intense; (2) duration — they may be momentary or 
prolonged, continuous or periodic; (3) extensity — 
they may be fine, sharp, cutting or spread out and 
dull. These variations in intensity, duration, and 
extensity, together with the combinations resulting 
from the blending of pain sensations with the sen- 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 111 

sations of temperature and pressure, account for 
the vast variety of pains described in common 
speech as stinging, cutting, burning, scratching, 
smarting, chafing pains, or as being dull or sharp, 
fine or massive. For instance, a stinging pain, 
according to Calkins, *Ms a complex experience of 
painfulness, of warmth and of a small extent of 
pressure;" a burning pain is composed of high de- 
grees of both pain and heat; a cutting pain is a 
complex of painfulness and successive pressure sen- 
sations. 

Besides the four kinds of cutaneous sensations 
already described, the skin seems to yield a number 
of seemingly elementary sensory experiences which 
are not included in the foregoing list. For instance, 
hardness, softness, roughness, smoothness, wetness, 
dryness, clamminess, oiliness, are popularly thought 
to be elementary touch experiences. They are, 
however, complexes due to fusions and variations 
among the cutaneous sensations, and to the blending 
of these latter with other sensations. They are de- 
scribed by Titchener as 'touch-blends', and will be 
referred to later (p. 113) under that heading. 

THE KINAESTHETIC SENSES. 

The organs of the kinaesthetic senses are found 
in the muscles, tendons, joints, and in the semi-cir- 
cular canals and vestibule of the internal ear. The 
corresponding kinaesthetic sensations are known as 
the musclar, tendinous, articular sensations, sensa- 
tions of swimming or dizziness, and of lightness or 
pressure in the head. 



112 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Under a pressure stimulus of varying intensity 
the muscles yield sensations which Titchener de- 
scribes as being, first, dull, diffuse, then dragging, 
sore, tired, achy. In general, the muscular sensa- 
tions resemble sensations of pressure. 

The tendinous sensations — which form the body 
of most of the ordinary sensations of strain, effort, 
exertion — originate chiefly in end-organs, called the 
spindles of Golgi, found in the tendons. (See Fig. 
16 F, p. 58). 

The articular sensations, as the name indicates, 
originate in the stimulation — ordinarily by move- 
ment at the joints — of sense-organs, distributed in 
the articular ligaments and in the synovial mem- 
branes lining the joints. These sensations are es- 
sential apparently to our perceptions of position and 
movement. For example, our knowledge of the 
position of an arm, or of a movement which it 
makes, is based, in part, upon the articular sensa- 
tions connected therewith. Moreover, our percep- 
tions of weight, as when we lift a heavy piece of 
furniture, and of resistance, as when we press with 
the hand against a swollen door, are both based 
upon the sensations originating in the articular sur- 
faces. In lifting a heavy weight, the muscles in- 
volved jam the articular surfaces together and the 
sensation thus aroused is the essential feature of 
the experience. Again, it is easy to believe that the 
sensations which come from the articular surfaces 
form an essential feature in the perception of re- 
sistance, especially when one pushes against a resist- 
ing object with hand or foot. 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 113 

The essential organs of the sensations of dizziness 
are three groups of hair-cells, containing nerve 
fibres, situated on the inner walls of the semi-cir- 
cular canals. Whirling round and round, or moving 
the head rapidly in any direction, sets in motion the 
'water' of the canals which brushes against the cells, 
giving rise to the sensation of swimming or of diz- 
ziness. Sensations sometimes of lightness in the 
head, sometimes of pressure or squeeze in the region 
of the ears, depend mainly upon changes in a struc- 
ture called the otolith membrane, situated in the 
vestibule of the internal ear. "This consists," says 
Piersol, *'of a gelatinous membrane in which are 
embedded numberless small crystalline bodies, the 
otoliths or ear-stones." A given position or move- 
ment of the head is accompanied by a given posi- 
tion or movement of the otoliths which, through the 
stimulation of the neighboring nerve fibrils, gives 
rise to the sensations just named. 

Titchener's 'Touch-Blends'. A hard substance is one 
which offers resistance, which forces together articular sur- 
faces, say of the hand or fingers; a soft substance is one 
which offers little or no resistance, which leaves the joint 
surfaces free. 'Hardness' and 'softness' denote differences 
in cutaneous and articular pressure sensations. The term 
'wetness', of everyday speech, is used to refer to a variety 
of complex sensory experiences. Thus the hands feel 'wet' 
when taken from a bowl of water, a dish-cloth feels wet, 
our clothing is wet through, as in a drenching rain. Two 
sensory elements seem always to be present in the ex- 
perience of wetness: a certain temperature different from 
the part of the body affected, and a certain pressure sensa- 
tion. Under some conditions these two alone suffice to 
arouse the feeling of wetness; usually, however, they are 



114 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

accompanied by perceptions of a smooth, uniform move- 
ment over the skin surface, and of weight or resistance. 
Dryness is a complex of variations of the same sensations 
and perceptions. Roughness, when it relates to an object 
affecting the skin, means a broken, irregular movement and 
the 'variable stimulation of the pressure spots of the skin.' 
Smoothness means a free, easy, regular move- 
ment over the skin surface and the uniform stimulation o|, 
the cutaneous pressure spots. "Clamminess', says Titchener, 
'is a mixture of cold and soft; the cold sensations and the 
pressure elements in the softness must be so distributed as 
to give the perception of moisture. . . . Oiliness is 
probably due to a certain combination of smoothness and 
resistance; movement seems to be necessary to its per- 
ception."^ 

Organic Sensations. — Certain sensations originat- 
ing in the digestive, circulatory, respiratory, and 
genital organs are grouped under the general name, 
Organic Sensations. Among them may be named 
the sensations of hunger, repletion, thirst, nausea, 
the oppressiveness from breathing stuffy air, the 
sense of exhilaration from breathing fresh, clear 
air, characteristic sensations from the heart region 
in anxiety, fear, disappointment, or after great 
physical exertion. 

Although it is true, as Titchener observes, that, 
as compared with our knowledge of the sensations 
of sight and hearing 'our knowledge of the organic 
sensations is scrappy in form and small in amount', 
enough is known to warrant the statement that 
most, if not all, of the latter are complex experiences. 
Thirst, for example, is described as a blending of 
warmth and pressure sensations; hunger consists 



1^ Text-Book of Psychology, 171 f, 



CLASSES OF SENSATIONS 115 

of pretty definitely localized aches and pressure 
sensations; and it may be said that the remainder 
of the organic sensations are probably analyzable 
into simpler sensations, chiefly those of pressure, 
warmth, cold, and pain. 

The organic sensations, in addition to whatever 
of interest may attach to them in and for them- 
selves, are especially interesting to the modern stu- 
dents of psychology because of the large part they 
play in the life of feeling, emotion, and what are 
loosely called our moods and temperaments. We 
shall speak of the part they play in these experiences 
in later sections. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. V. 

Howell: Text-Book of Physiology. 

Myers: A Text-Book of Experimental Psychology, pp. 11- 

122. 
Pillsbury: The Essentials of Psychology, Ch. IV. 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 10-67. 



CHAPTER V 
PERCEPTION 

Perception Defined.— The briefest possible common- 
sense definition of perception is : 'Perception 
is the consciousness of particular material things 
present to sense.'^ (James). Perception is thus 
marked off, on the one hand, from pure sensation 
which is the bare consciousness of a thing's qual- 
ities, and which in itself is never awareness of the 
existence of the 'thing' ; and, on the other hand, 
from images, mental pictures of objects, the repre- 
sentation thereof, after they cease to be present to 
sense. Thus we agree to call the consciousness 
which the light of a bright moon may arouse in the 
mind of a week-old babe — Sensation ; a grown per- 
son's consciousness of the moon as he gazes at it — 
Perception ; and the visual picture which one may 
have of the moon after its disappearance from view 
— an Image. 

Like many other distinctions which the description of our 
mental life involves, the ones just drawn between percep- 
tions and sensations on the one hand and images on the 
other are somewhat artificial and arbitrary. In actual 
experience, sensations shade into perceptions, and percep- 
tions into images, so that no sharp lines of distinction can be 
drawn, except by leaving out of account many border-land 
phenomena. And yet, there are certain easily discernible 
differences between perceptions and sensations and between 



1 By 'things' is meant not only what in everyday speech we des- 
ignate as 'things' — a book, a tree, a star, — together with their 
properties and conditions, but also events and situations, 



(116) 



PERCEPTION 117 

perceptions and images. The study of the former, to which 
we now turn, should also add to our knowledge of the nature 
of perception as a distinct form of consciousness. The dif- 
ferences and likenesses between perceptions and images will 
be described in the chapter on Mental Images, (p. 138ff.) 

Perception and Sensation Compared. — We have 
said that pure sensations are bare consciousnesses 
of the qualities of objects, such as redness or sour- 
ness or coldness, without any accompanying thought 
of the objects themselves, or of the qualities as be- 
longing to objects. Sensations are aroused by the 
action of external objects upon the sense-organs, 
but in themselves they are not a consciousness of 
such objects. The distinctive mark of a Perception, 
on the other hand, is that it is a consciousness of a 
thing which at the moment is present to sense ; it is 
at least the consciousness of 'something there.' In 
sensation, the qualities of things — colors, tastes, 
coldnesses, for example — are experienced as bare 
colors, tastes, coldnesses, while in perception they 
are thought of as belonging to things outside the 
mind. To illustrate: if rays from an electric light 
chance to fall upon the eyes of a ten days' old babe 
they probably awaken only a light sensation. Three 
years later, rays from the same light falling upon 
the same eyes awaken a perception of the light, the 
consciousness of 'something-out-there' which the 
child calls 'light,' The difference between sensation 
and perception may also be expressed by saying that 
while both depend upon the excitation of sense- 
organs by external objects, only the latter carries 
within itself the consciousness of such objects. Per- 
ception always points, however indefinitely, toward 



118 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

something ; sensation, on the contrary, never points 
to, never means anything; it simply is. 

From another point of view, we may say that 
whereas sensations are simple, elementary processes, 
in the sense explained in Chapter III, perceptions 
are always complex and comprise a central sensory 
factor supplemented by other sensations, images, 
thoughts, which constitute the perception's meaning. 
For instance, your perception — 'piano', when a piano 
note is struck in your hearing, is a complex and con- 
sists of tonal sensations supplemented by images and 
thoughts of the general appearance of the instru- 
ment, its size, location, weight, color, lustre, the 
thought, or feeling, of the words, 'piano tone', and 
so on. Sensations are simple, elementary; percep- 
tions are complex and comprise a number of related 
sensory, imaginal, and thought factors. 

The Genesis of Perception. — In the foregoing par- 
agraphs we have indicated the general nature of 
perception, and also certain respects in which it dif- 
fers from sensation. Let us turn next to the ques- 
tion of the origin and development of perception in 
individual experience. An illustration will aid us 
perhaps in understanding the nature of the latter 
question. Suppose that, as you sit in your room, a 
certain series of sounds from the street reaches your 
ears, and you say, 'a motor-cycle.' Now, if you in- 
quire concerning the nature of your consciousness, 
your perception of the motor-cycle, you probably 
find a series of explosive noises, located more or less 
definitely; possibly a faint visual picture of a mov- 
ing figure, possibly also more or less strongly 
marked organic sensations, and the thought — 'mo- 



PERCEPTION 119 

tor-cycle'. If you know the machine and its rider 
well, your consciousness will likely be richer, fuller 
of details ; but it need not be ; it may still be merely 
the indefinite localization of a recognized sound. If 
now we ask by what steps this and similar percep- 
tions grow up, what are the conditions of their ap- 
pearance as distinct forms of an individual's mental 
activity, then we must retrace the experiences which 
taught us that sound sensations in general originate 
in external stimuli, and that these particular sounds 
belong to motor-cycles. Stated otherwise the prob- 
lem of the genesis of perception in individual 
experience is — by what steps does an infant get 
from the plane of pure sensation — where sensations 
mean nothing, where they awaken no thoughts of 
things, but are a series of bare flashes of conscious- 
ness — to the plane of perception where sensory im- 
pulses at once awaken images and thoughts of par- 
ticular things? The key to the answer to this 
question is found in the simple law (which we may 
call the general law of the perceptual process) that 
any sensory experience which resembles a former 
one tends to arouse images and thoughts of the for- 
mer's associates. The consciousnesses thus aroused 
may be images of one or more of a thing's sensory 
qualities, or they may be merely bare thoughts of 
the thing's name or location, or merely of 'something 
there'. Thus an odor from ripe apples may awaken 
in one's mind images of apples of a given color, a 
given form, size, hardness or mellowness, roughness 
or smoothness, and so on; or merely the naked 
vocable or the fleeting, inarticulate thought — 'ap- 
ples.' A corollary of the foregoing law is that the 



120 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

recurrence, in kind, of any sensory experience which 
has previously been a factor in the consciousness of 
any particular thing may serve as the vehicle of the 
thing's perception, may mean that thing. For ex- 
ample, a given sensory impression, either of color, 
or of odor, or of touch-blend, may mean — to one 
familiar with the fruit — 'orange'. 

With these general principles of the perceptional 
process in mind, let us trace briefly the steps 
whereby a baby acquires the perception of a given 
object — for example, some toy. We may suppose 
that the toy is shown to the child, and that he expe- 
riences a series of sight sensations, say red, blue, 
and yellow. Suppose also that the child is allowed 
to handle the toy and that he gets, along with the 
visual sensations, certain experiences of touch, 
weight, resistance, smoothness, hardness, move- 
ment, possibly the odor of fresh paint, possibly also 
sound sensations — either those which the toy makes 
under manipulation or of its spoken name. Now, 
while looking at and handling the toy, these various 
sensory experiences — the sound which the toy 
makes when shaken, the sound of its spoken name, 
its appearance to the eye, the way it 'feels to touch' 
— become linked together, so that the recurrence, in 
kind, of one of these tends to revive images and 
thoughts of the others. Whenever such a revival 
actually occurs, we have a rudimentary form of the 
perceptional process. This, the stage at which a 
particular kind of sensory process awakens images 
or thoughts of sensory qualities formerly associated 
therewith, may be called the first stage of percep- 



PERCEPTION 121 

tion; we shall see presently that it is not the final 
one. 

Observation of certain phenomena of the early- 
stages of the infant's mental development strongly 
confirms the view that perception begins in some 
such way as that just described. To cite only one 
example: observers of the behavior of infants re- 
port that searching for the source of sounds appears 
first near the beginning of the third month. Thus, 
if one stands outside of the child's field of vision 
and makes a noise with a familiar toy, the child 
wriggles and turns about as if looking for the source 
of the sound. It seems likely that in instances of 
this sort certain visual pictures have become asso- 
ciated with particular auditory experiences, and 
that the recurrence of the latter revives, according 
to the law mentioned a little while ago, the former. 

But perception which consists merely or mainly 
of the revived images of sensible qualities not at the 
moment present to sense is distinctly a first stage, a 
baby's way of perceiving. A higher stage is reached 
when the child's perceptions are of things localized 
in a given direction and in a given place in space. 
Thus one combination of light and color means — a 
horse in the street; another, a soaring eagle; one 
sound means — a barking dog across the way ; an- 
other, children playing in the yard below; one odor 
means — frying bacon ; another, the furnace is smok- 
ing, and so on for the whole round of our sensory 
impressions and the meanings which they acquire 
in the course of experience. 

It may be observed in passing that in the course 
of normal development, children reach a plane which 



122 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

is characterized by pre-occupation with objects of 
sense. The child lives and has his being in a world 
of perceived things. He is absorbed in objects of the 
outer world, their names and physical properties, 
whence they come and their uses. The stage is pre- 
eminently one of sense-perception. In time the 
objects of sense lose somewhat of their charm; and 
the perceptions of the developed mind are usually 
nothing more than the bare thoughts of the per- 
ceived things. Thus, one hears a distant noise and 
thinks - — 'railway-train-over-there', or glances out 
of the window at the falling snow-flakes and thinks 
— 'it's snowing', or gets a given odor and thinks 'a 
cigar', and that is all. It is only rarely that our 
perception consists in anything more than the barest 
pulse of recognitive thought. We know the thing, 
and that is enough. We do not stop to image it or 
any of its properties; perhaps it gets named and 
located; but comparatively few perceptions of the 
adult mind include even the thought of the perceived 
thing's name. 

Variations in Perceptional Stimuli. — Ordinarily 
our perception of a given thing — say a building, a 
vehicle, an article of food, clouds, a piece of ice, 
depends upon the recurrence of one of a small num- 
ber of definite sensory experiences which have be- 
come, through custom, factors in our consciousness 
of that thing. Moreover, most of the perceptions of 
normal persons are aroused by either visual or audi- 
tory cues. Thus, the normal person's perceptions of 
buildings, trees, a clouded sun, usually depend upon 
given visual impressions ; perceptions of street-cars 
and automobiles depend upon either definite audi- 



PERCEPTION 123 

tory or visual stimuli. But it is also clear that any 
sensory experience may arouse the perception of 
any particular thing, provided that a similar expe- 
rience has at some former time been a factor in our 
consciousness of the thing. For example, a sudden 
change in temperature may mean — 'clouded sun', 
a change in air currents — 'a building is there', a 
given odor may mean — 'mince pie', a given coldness 
or the touch-blends, hardness, smoothness, wetness, 
may mean 'ice'. To illustrate further, the sensory 
cue to the perception of a tree is usually a blend of 
light and color; but it may be a certain touch, or a 
certain noise, as when the wind rushes through 
branches and leaves ; it may be an odor either from 
foliage or blossoms or fruit, it may be a sudden 
pleasant warmth of the atmosphere which one expe- 
riences most strikingly when driving on a cool sum- 
mer's night and unexpectedly passes under a large 
tree by the roadside. Any one of these sensory im- 
pressions may serve to awaken the perception — 
'tree.' 

The sensory element, or aspect, of a perception may be 
likened to the words whereby we learn to designate familiar 
objects. At first, both are meaningless and both may, in 
the course of experience, acquire meanings, come to point to 
particular things. In much the same way that the word 
'coal', seen or heard, comes to mean a certain kind of fuel, 
a certain sensation either of color or contact or taste or 
odor comes to mean 'orange'. 

Variations in Our Perceptions of Particular Things. 
— We have just seen that although our perceptions 
of given things arise, ordinarily, from one or another 
of a small number of sensory impressions, they may. 



124 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

under given conditions, be aroused by any one of a 
great variety of such impressions. We may next 
remark that the nature and the number of the men- 
tal factors which are present in the perceptions of 
given things vary greatly from individual to indi- 
vidual and from time to time in the experience of 
the same individual. These variations depend upon 
differences in native endowment and previous expe- 
rience, upon one's mental alertness at the moment, 
upon the dominant mood and the trend of one's con- 
sciousness, upon the nature of one's immediate in- 
terests or occupation. Thus the content of one's 
perceptions may be dominantly visual or auditory 
or motor (kinsesthetic) , or it may consist of all sorts 
of combinations of visual, auditory, kinsesthetic, and 
other factors. For one person perceiving is chiefly 
seeing; for another, it is hearing; for another, 'feel- 
ing'. For example, the perception 'rooster crowing' 
(if aroused by an auditory stimulus alone) consists, 
for one mind, mainly of a given recognized but in- 
definitely localized sound; for another, it is a visual 
picture of varying clearness and distinctness of the 
fowl in the crowing attitude; for still a third, it con- 
sists chiefly of a complex of sound and strain sensa- 
tions, the latter being due to the imitation of the 
crower's attitude. 

It is evident that individual variations in the per- 
ceptions of given things depend largely upon differ- 
ences in individual experience. One illustration will 
suffice. To the experienced sailor, a shimmering 
light on the distant sea means 'an iceberg,' while 
to the mere land-lubber it remains unobserved or is 
a mere shimmer 'out there' ; it awakens no associ- 



PERCEPTION 125 

ates or definite tiioughts of its relations to other 
things. 

It is, perhaps, unnecessary to dwell upon the 
obvious fact that, other things equal, one's percep- 
tional consciousness is richer, fuller of details, more 
accurate when one is mentally alert than when 
drowsy ; nor upon the equally obvious differences 
among individuals in respect to the richness or pov- 
erty, clearness or dullness, distinctness or vague- 
ness which characterize their perceptions. It is no 
less clear that mental trend, immediate interests and 
occupation determine largely whether one shall or 
shall not perceive the things which at a given 
moment are present to sense; and also, if they are 
perceived at all, what the character of the perception 
shall be. It is a commonplace that we are usually 
blind and deaf to most of the things about us ; and, 
generally speaking, the perceptual consciousness of 
grown persons, except in respect to the things which 
immediately concern them, is vague and barren. 
Sensory impulses reach the cortex, the fleeting 
thought 'something there' shoots into the field of 
consciousness, but instantly fades away. What the 
'something', of which we are dimly aware, is, where 
it is, of what stuff it consists, we do not know or 
care. 

Illusions of Perception. — Every perception is a 
consciousness of something present to sense. It is 
a true, or correct, perception if the sensible qualities 
or behavior or relationships ascribed to a given 
thing are or may be confirmed by later observation 
or reflection ; it is a false perception, or an illusion, 
if they cannot be so confirmed, 



126 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Classes of Illusions. — Illusions may be classified 
roughly as (1) those due mainly to the influence of 
the central, i. e., mental or cortical, processes; (2) 
those due chiefly to equivocal or deceptive processes 
in the sense-organs; (3) those dependent upon the 
joint or alternate action of the two foregoing prin- 
cipal causes. The situations in which these two sets 
of causes operate either separately or conjointly to 
give rise to false perceptions instead of correct ones 
may be illustrated briefly. 

Illusions that depend chiefly upon the influence of 
the central factors are due very frequently to the 
fact that, at the moment of receiving a particular 
sensory impression, the mind, for some reason, 'is 
temporarily full,' to use James' phrase, of either 
images or thoughts of the object which is wrongly 
perceived. Numerous illustrations might be given 
of illusions due to one's mental trend, or 'cortical 
set'. The two following will suffice. Suppose that 
one walking by night in a strange wood sees ahead 
of him a darkish object bearing spots of light. The 
thing is a log holding cups of water which reflect 
the light of moon and stars. But if our imaginary 
traveller's mind is full of images and thoughts of 
wild beasts, he will not unlikely perceive the log and 
water as a beast of prey with gleaming eyes. An- 
other familiar illustration of the influence of the 
dominant mental trend or imagery is — one's mis- 
taking the ringing of a bicycle bell for that of the 
door-bell when one is expecting a visitor. In other 
cases, the illusion is due to the fact that a sensory 
impulse awakens its habitual associates which, in the 
given instance, are not or can not be verified by later 



PERCEPTION 127 

observation. For example, a student of the 'Psy- 
chology of Suggestion' relates that when he sprayed 
the desks and floor of a school room with distilled 
water (which is perfectly odorless) from a Cologne 
bottle, several of the children present were sure that 
they smelled Cologne; spray from a Cologne bottle 
had in former experience given the odor of the per- 
fume and so suggested it in the instance cited. On 
another occasion, the majority of a class in psychol- 
ogy read 'psychogaly' as 'psychology' ; they caught a 
glimpse of the first part of the trick word or of its 
general form and length which revived its custom- 
ary associate — 'psychology'. Another illustration of 
illusion due to habit or association is the following : 
a few evenings ago the writer heard a distant noise 
which immediately suggested a faint picture of a 
drove of ducks and the thought — 'ducks quacking' ; 
then he remembered that it was Hallowe'en and the 
sound was heard as one produced by a particular 
kind of noise-maker called a 'horse-fiddle.' Certain 
features of similar noises had on some former occa- 
sion been associated with 'quacking ducks', and upon 
their recurrence awakened that perception which, 
in the instance cited, happened to be false. Just why 
that particular noise meant just that particular 
thing and not some other one of a multitude of other 
possible things is a problem that belongs to a later 
chapter. It will suffice here to observe that, in the 
case cited, the present impression, through its re- 
semblance to an earlier one, revived one of that ear- 
lier impression's associates, but a wrong one. The 
foregoing may serve as illustrations of illusions due 
to mental trend, cortical set, and habit. 



128 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



Illusions of the second class are due chiefly, we 
have said, to either the equivocal or the misleading 
nature of the sensory processes involved rather than 
to the influence of mental habit, cortical trend, or 
expectancy. To this class belongs the illusion that 
an object comes nearer when, after looking at it 
with one eye, both eyes are used (James) ; the moon's 






/iiilkr-lijer ill us ion 




seeming nearer when viewed through an opera 
glass than when seen with the naked eye; the illus- 
ion that the rising moon is larger than the moon at 
full height; the illusion of two noses, when one 
crosses the second finger over the first and moves the 
tips of the crossed fingers to and fro across the 
bridge of the nose; the illusion which one gets of 



PERCEPTION 



129 



'moving up stream' after gazing steadily for a time 

over the edge of a bridge at the flowing water below. 

Pages 128, 129 contain a few of the better known 

illusion-figures which will serve as further examples 



O 



O 



ooooo 

Ti^. -xa. 



jl 




\ 



TAa /Serins f'^t^^^ 



of false percepticns that are due chiefly to the illu- 
sory character of the sensory processes involved. 
In the Miiller-Lyer figure the line bearing the feath- 
ered ends is judged to be longer than the one with 
the arrow-heads, although they are found to be of 



130 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

equal length when measured. In the Zollner pat- 
tern the longer diagonal lines are parallel, though 
they seem to tip toward each other. In Figure 28 A 
the vertical and the horizontal line are of equal 
length, though the former looks longer. In Figure 
28 B the distance between the centers of the outer- 
most circles of the upper and lower lines is the 
same, yet it seems greater in the lower one. In the 
Hering figure the two inside vertical lines are paral- 
lel, yet they seem bent or bowed at the center. 

The illusions which we have described in the 
immediately preceding paragraphs may be classed 
among the phenomena of the normal mental life. 

It remains to mention 
briefly certain illu- 
sions of the abnormal 
consciousness. Some 
of these belong to the 
'dream life,' as when 
a sleeping person is 
touched with a pin- 
point and dreams that 
he is being run 
through with a sword ; 
others are characteristic of the hypnotic state, as 
when a hypnotized subject is shown a few scrawls 
on a sheet of paper and sees them as a photograph 
of a relative or as a copy of the Declaration of In- 
dependence; still others are of frequent occurrence 
in the insane, as when a patient hears the jingle of 
bells and imagines the martial music of an invading 
army. In these illusions a sensory stimulus is pres- 
ent, thus marking them off from the pure hallucin- 




FiG. 29. (From Jastrow's 'Fact 
and Fable in Psychology', Fig^. 19.) 



PERCEPTION 



131 



ations, to be described presently ; but its nature does 
not warrant the character, and particularly the ex- 
aggeration of the consciousness which it induces. 

Equivocal Figures. — The influence of both mental 
trend, thoughts, imagery and sensory processes- — 
now one, now the other, now both — in determining 
the nature of one's perceptions is strikingly shown 
by the variety of experiences one gets in looking at 
the 'equivocal figures,' (classed by some authors 

with the illusions) 
shown on pages 130, 
131 and 132. Thus, 
whether one shall see 
figure 29 as a rabbit's 
or as a duck's head, fig- 
ure 30 as superimposed 
triangles, or as a hex- 
agon enclosed by six 
triangles, or as a dia- 
mond across which lies 
a concave polygon, de- 
pends chiefly on how 
one conceives of these 
different figures, i. e., 
upon one's present thoughts, images, and purpose. 
On the other hand, the fluctuations in one's percep- 
tion of D (Thiery's prism), E (changing rings), F 
(Mach's book) , Fig. 31, page 132, depend chiefly, but 
not wholly, upon muscular changes of adaptation in 
the eyes ; while one's perception of figure G, as 
either a picture frame, or as the bottom of a dish, as 
the entrance to a tunnel, or as the frustum of a pyr- 
amid, or as a small square set in the midst of four 




Fig. 30. 




FiS. 3/. 



(1 2) 



PERCEPTION 133 

trapezoids, depends partly upon mental factors, 
thoughts, imagery, and partly upon eye changes — 
'muscular changes of adaptation in the eye for near 
and far distances'.^ 

An interesting example of illusions that are dependent 
upon both mental habit and illusory processes in the sense- 
organs is that the larger of two objects, whose weight is the 
same, seems lighter. 'This illusion persists', says Titchener, 
'in spite of our knowledge that the weights are equal'. 

Hallucination. — As mental experiences, all percep- 
tions, whether true or false, are alike in that they 
are consciousnesses of particular material things 
present to sense. The only difference is that the 
true perceptions are verifiable in a broader expe- 
rience, whereas the false perceptions are not. 

One group of false perceptions — called illusions — 
consists, as we have seen, of wrong interpretations 
of sensory impressions ; thus a moving train is seen 
as if at rest, a stump of a tree is seen as a ghost, 
the rustle of leaves is heard as the stealthy approach 
of an enemy. A second group of false perceptions, 
called hallucinations, depend almost entirely upon 
changes in the sensory cortical centers or in the 
sense-organs themselves, i. e., they arise independ- 
ently of the ordinary modes of sensory stimulation 
— by light waves, sound waves, odorous particles in 
the air, etc. Thus one 'sees' an animal enter the 
room, or 'hears' words spoken by a familiar voice. 



1 For further description and explanation of illusion and equi- 
vocal figures, see Sanford^ A Course in Experimental Psychology, 
1898, Ch. VII ; also TItcheneRj Experimental Psychology, Vol. I, 
pt. 1, § 44 ; pt. II, §§ 49, 50. 



134 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

or 'feels' a hand laid on the shoulder, when in fact, 
in the first case, the room suffers no invasion, animal 
or other, and when, in the other two cases, no human 
being is within miles. 

The centrally excited hallucinations, those de- 
pendent directly on changes in the cortical centers, 
are supposed to be due to the presence of irritants — 
such as alcohol, carbonic acid, or ether — in the 
blood which courses through the brain. The peri- 
pherally excited hallucinations are dependent indi- 
rectly upon physiological processes — some normal, 
some abnormal — within the sense-organs. Many 
of the hallucinations of the insane, of the drunkard 
in delirium treme7is, of feverish patients, and of the 
dream consciousness, are believed to be due to this 
latter cause. 

Those hallucinations which sometimes occur in 
minds which are otherwise healthy and normal, and 
which cannot, in the present state of knowledge con- 
cerning them, be assigned to any specific cause, are 
probably due to a temporary disturbance of the nor- 
mal functioning of the cortical centers. This sup- 
position is strengthened by the observation that 
they usually appear as features of mental states 
which are highly emotional in tone ; their customary 
setting is some sort of mental agitation, usually of 
extreme anxiety or fear or anger or hope or a mix- 
ture of these and kindred emotions. For example, 
the case which James quotes from Gurney's Census 
of Hallucinations, of the girl who, during "a very 
painful discussion with an elderly person," wished 
very much for the opinion of a brother in regard to 



PERCEPTION 13S 

the matter, and turning "around saw him sitting at 
the further end of a center-table with his arms 
folded, .... wearing a sarcastic expression" 
. , . although he was not at the time near the 
place, is probably typical of the hallucinations of 
minds otherwise normal, in that it arose in a 
strongly marked emotional setting, namely, of dis- 
tress, anger, longing, and so on. More impressive 
illustrations of hallucinations born of mental strain, 
of heat oppressed brains are found in the works of 
the novelists, poets and dramatists. Readers of 
Shakespeare, for example, will recall that he got 
strong dramatic effects in the portrayal of this phe- 
nomenon. Banquo's 'ghost', the dagger episode. 
Lady Macbeth's 'blood-stained hands' will readily 
occur as illustrations of the fact that emotional 
storm and stress is one fertile source of hallucina- 
tory experiences. 

The distinction just drawn between illusory and halluci- 
natory perceptions, namely, that the former involve the 
stimulation of sense-organs by objects external thereto, 
while the latter arise independently of such stimulation, is 
confessedly arbitrary. In actual experience, hallucinations 
and illusions, as regards both their nature and causes, shade 
into one another by imperceptible degrees. 



See James, Prin. of Psych. II, p. 114 ff. for description of 
'pseudo-hallucinations', and of certain forms of hallucination that 
seem to be peripherally excited. For theories in respect to the 
neural basis of hallucinations, see .James II, 122-131. Pillsbury 
(Essentials of Psychology, p. 184 ft.) maintains that all hallucina- 
tory experiences are probably traceable to a sensational basis. 



136 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. VI. 

James: Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Ch. XIX. 

Jastrow: Fact and Fable in Psychology, pp. 275-295. 

Judd: Psychology, Ch. VI. 

Parish: Hallucinations and Illusions. 

Sanford: a Course in Experimental Psychology, 1898, Ch. 

VII. 
Seashore: Elementary Experiments in Psychology, Chs. XII, 

XIV. 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 85-104. 
Titchener: Experimental Psychology, Vol. I, Pt. II, §§ 49, 

50. 
Wither: Analytic Psychology, Chs. Ill, IV. 



CHAPTER VI 

MENTAL IMAGES 

In the chapters on Sensation and Perception, we 
were concerned, mainly, with processes which arise 
only upon the stimulation of the sense-organs. Men- 
tal Images, which we shall now study, depend im- 
mediately upon changes in the cortical centers rather 
than upon sensory stimuli. 

The term 'mental image' is used in psychology 
in three fairly distinct meanings. First, it is used 
to designate a special class of conscious processes in 
distinction from sensations, perceptions, thoughts, 
emotions, volitions, and so on. In this case, it 
means a centrally excited mental process which 
resembles in essential respects an earlier perception, 
i. e., an earlier consciousness of a particular material 
thing present to sense. For example, our images of 
the faces of our friends, of familiar stretches of 
landscape or of well known strains of music resem- 
ble, in some degree, our former perceptions of these 
objects. The term is also used in a narrower sense 
as the equivalent of 'memory-image' which differs 
from the broader term — mental image — by the 
fact that a peculiar sense of pastness and of owner- 
ship attaches to the experiences which we know by 
means of the former. In the third place, we use the 
term to mean an 'image of imagination', which may 
be described provisionally as a new and strange com- 

(137) 



138 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

bination of perceptions and mental images, or of 
either of these, as when one images Cupid lightly 
poised in the crescent of a new moon. We shall be 
concerned in the present chapter with mental images 
in general. The distinctive features of this class of 
mental phenomena can be shown best, perhaps, by 
comparing them with perceptions and ideas — proc- 
esses to which they are closely related. 

Perception and Image Compared. — The compar- 
ison usually drawn between perceptions and images 
relates, primarily, to the sensory element, or aspect, 
of the original perception, on the one hand, and to 
the corresponding aspect of the image, on the other. 
From this point of view, it was said in the preceding 
paragraph that the image of a given thing resembles 
in essential respects a perception of the thing. For 
example, one's images of one's breakfast-table, or 
of the sound of a bell, or of the odor of coal-smoke, 
resemble more or less fully one's earlier perceptions 
of these objects. Again one's images of particular 
colors, tones, tastes, odors, temperatures, resemble 
the sensory quality of those particular colors, tones, 
and so on. The image of a red book or of the taste 
of a sour apple has the same quality of redness in 
the one case and sourness in the other as the original 
perceptual experience. In short, the image and the 
perception of a given thing are always qualitatively 
similar. Moreover, the image of the tones of a mel- 
ody or of an object that possesses a varied color 
pattern reproduces, in some measure, the order and 
the relations of the perceived colors and tones. 
Imaging my breakfast-table or the notes of 'The 
Star-Spangled Banner', for example, means pictur- 



MENTAL IMAGES 139 

ing not only the qualities of the several colors in 
the one case and tones in the other, but also imaging 
the colors in their respective places on the table and 
the tones in their proper order in the tune. In brief, 
the image and the perception of an object resemble 
one another in respect to both the qualities and (in 
the case of many objects) the order and arrange- 
ment of their several parts. So much with respect 
to the easily observed points of agreement between 
perceptions and images. Practically, their differ- 
ences are no less evident; otherwise we should be 
puzzled all the while as to whether our days are 
being passed in a world of perceived things or in a 
world of merely imaged ones. Let us next note some 
of the ways in which perceptions and images differ. 
We have said several times already that percep- 
tion depends immediately upon the stimulation of a 
sense-organ, and that images arise independently of 
such stimulation, that in the former case the object 
is present to sense and that in the latter it is not. 
We have now to consider certain differences between 
perceptions and images which arise directly out of 
this primary difference in the conditions of their 
occurrence. 

(a) Variations in our perceptions are controlled 
chiefly by variations in sensory stimulation, while 
variations in our images are relatively free from 
this influence ; our images possess a certain freedom 
and independence which perceptions, owing to their 
necessary dependence upon sensory stimuli, lack. 

(b) It is characteristic of many perceptions that 
they obtrude themselves, so to speak, into the stream 
of -consciousness, they come unbidden and often with 



140 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

an aggressiveness which sweeps all before it. The 
image, on the other hand, has, in the normal mind, 
nothing about it which suggests the bold obtrusive- 
ness of perceptions. This general difference, again, 
obviously depends upon the fundamental difference 
in the conditions of the appearance of the two pro- 
cesses. 

This quality of 'aggressiveness', of 'striking the mind with 
force and liveliness', which perceptions sometimes possess, is, 
in Stout's opinion, the chief quality which marks them off 
from images; and broadly taken, it is no doubt an important 
ground of difference. But as reflection shows, it is not in 
itself a primary difference; it is dependent upon the more 
fundamental one (already mentioned several times), in the 
conditions of their occurrence. It may be observed inci- 
dentally that it is likely that in children, in highly im- 
aginal minds, and in certain diseased minds, 'aggressiveness' 
is not so obviously a peculiar characteristic of their percep- 
tional experiences as compared with their imaginal. 

What we have described as the 'aggressiveness' of per- 
ceptions is closely akin to their 'inevitableness' and 'involun- 
tariness' as described by Calkins. She writes: "I must see 
and touch just this pen .... I must hear this tune 
and must smell the odor of falling grass. I may wish that 
I held a silver pen [instead of one of celluloid], that I were 
smelling roses instead of hay; but I am bound down, in my 
perceiving, to precisely this experience. I am, in a word, 
directly conscious of myself as receptive. And this direct 
consciousness of my receptivity, prominent in my perception, 
is wanting to my imagination. In some sense, at least, my 
imaginings are under my control." ' 

(c) Another difference, which also results from 
the difference in the conditions of their occurrence, 
is that perceptions are more likely than images to be 



lA First Book of Psychology, 1910, p. 11 f. 



MENTAL IMAGES 141 

accompanied or followed by marked organic dis- 
turbances. The sight of a flash of lightning, or the 
sound of martial music, not infrequently produces in 
us unmistakable bodily commotion; but it is exceed- 
ingly rare that the image of either of these things 
occasions perceptible organic disturbance. 

(d) Certain other differences between perceptions 
and images may be briefly noted. We may remark, 
first, that the perceptions of objects and the images 
thereof differ in that the former are more vivid than 
the latter. In this case, also, we mean that the 
sensory aspect, or factor, of the original perception 
is more vivid than the corresponding factor of the 
image. For instance, the sensory aspect of one's 
experience is usually more vivid when one is listen- 
ing to the tones of a piano or is gazing at the starry 
heavens than when one is imaging these objects. 
Again, perceptions are usually clearer and more dis- 
tinct than their corresponding images ; they are also 
steadier, less fluctuating; they usually include more 
details and the order of the arrangement of these 
details is more accurate in the perception than in the 
image. Conversely, images as compared with per- 
ceptions are, as a rule, fainter, less vivid, hazier, 
more fluctuating, less complete in the matter of de- 
tails, and less accurate as regards the order and 
arrangement of the latter. 

If now it be asked how perceptions and images are 
distinguished in our ordinary waking consciousness, 
we must answer — not so much by their customary 
differences in vividness, distinctness, steadiness, and 
accuracy in the reproduction and ordering of details, 
or -even by the quality of 'aggressiveness' possessed 



142 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

by the former, as by the sense of congruity, or har- 
mony, with our other experiences of the moment, 
or the absence thereof, which each awakens. For 
example, the image of a puffing locomotive may rise 
in consciousness as one looks at the onward rush of 
a foot-ball team ; but we know it is an image and not 
a real locomotive for the simple reason that its ap- 
pearance at that moment is known to be incongruous 
with the total situation. Again, an image of a foot- 
ball scrimmage as one stands in the midst of engines 
and trains in a railway station is recognized as an 
image at once for a similar reason. It is not prop- 
erly a feature of such surroundings. On the other 
hand, the flying colors, the cheers of spectators at 
the ball-game; the ringing of bells, the puffing of 
engines, the odor of smoke in the station, are imme- 
diately perceived as congruous with their respective 
total situations, and their perceptional character is 
readily admitted. In fact, this sense of congruity 
is so powerful in determining what processes shall 
be deemed perceptual and what imaginal, that 
images often fail to be recognized as such, if they are 
congruous with a perceptual situation, and with the 
dominant trend of consciousness. Instances of this 
sort were described in the paragraphs on Illusions 
(p. 126 ff.). 

We have just seen that the sense of congruity is 
the practical test most frequently employed in dis- 
tinguishing images from perceptions when our total 
experience is predominantly perceptional, as when 
watching a foot-ball game or the trains in a railway 
station. In like manner, when we are resting quietly 



MENTAL IMAGES 143 

in our room, day-dreaming, or rehearsing the num- 
bers of a concert which we have recently attended, 
or repicturing the events of a recent trip, or merely 
retracing the day's happenings, the noise of a dog's 
barking outside our window, the ticking of the clock 
on the shelf, odors from the kitchen, the sight of the 
articles of furniture about us, do not get into the 
train of imagery for the simple reason that they do 
not belong there. They belong to a different group 
of mental experiences, to a different setting, and we 
are conscious of them, if at all, as features of their 
appropriate perceptional situations. 

In order that the sense of congruity or of its lack shall 
arise in a given situation and shall operate so as to make 
us aware of what is perceptional and what imaginal in a 
given field of consciousness, there must be present a certain 
degree of self-consciousness, we must know at least dimly 
where we are and what we are doing. When this is lack- 
ing, as in little children, the line between perceptional and 
imaginal experiences also fades out or becomes shadowy. 
With this latter fact in mind we are often able to listen to 
a child's 'fairy-stories' without great alarm, and to reaffirm 
our belief that children are naturally truthful. 

Image and Idea Compared.^ — The consciousness of 
a previously perceived object may arise in the form 
of either an image or an idea. In the former case, 
the earlier experience is copied, reproduced in some 
sort or degree. The sensational qualities, the par- 
ticular colors or tones or tastes, or what not, of the 
original experience reappear, in some measure, in 
the image; further, the temporal order and the 
spatial arrangement of the components of the image 
resemble those of the earlier process. Thus, when 



144 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

one mentally pictures one's study, the colors of the 
various articles of furniture, the rug, decorations, 
pictures, table, rows of books, chairs, together with 
their customary positions in the room, are repro- 
duced with more or less vividness and accuracy in 
the image. In brief, the distinctive character of an 
image is that it is primarily in some sort a copy of 
an earlier perceived object. On the other hand, the 
distinctive mark of an idea, in the present limited 
meaning of the term, is that it is a thought of, a 
mental nod toward, such an object. To ideate an 
object is, in this sense, to refer to it, to point toward 
it, to mean it. Now the idea of a given thing — 
object, event, or situation — may involve more or 
less of imagery of the thing ; but it need not. Every 
case of thinking by means of symbols — signs, words, 
formulae — is an illustration of this fact. When one 
says, for example, 'horses eat corn and hay', one 
expresses certain ideas, indicates certain things; 
but one need not image horses or corn or hay or 
the eating, though possibly one could if the circum- 
stances required it. The thought of the words is 
sufficient to convey the meaning. The difference 
between imaging a thing and having ideas of or 
about it may be further illustrated by the familiar 
observation that one may think — 'the roar of a 
cannon is louder than a pistol shot' or 'the bright- 
ness of the moon exceeds that of the stars' without 
imaging the cannon's roar or the pistol shot or the 
brightness of moon and stars. The content of con- 
sciousness in such cases need not be distinctly im- 
aginal at all ; faint, fleeting images or sensations of 



MENTAL IMAGES 145 

the words are sufficient to carry the meaning. More- 
over, we have ideas of things which we can in no 
sense image. For example, I may know that anger 
differs from fear, and yet be unable to image either 
of the emotions or their differences. Again, one 
may have ideas about, may think of, the odor of 
onions, but still be unable to image the odor; one 
may know, for instance, that it is different from that 
of locust blossoms, that it resembles garlic, that it 
is unpleasant to some persons, that certain super- 
stitions cluster about its medicinal virtues, and so 
on. The imaginal consciousness — to repeat — re- 
sembles in some sort its object: the ideational con- 
sciousness is merely a thought reference to an object 
without any implication of its resemblance thereto. 

Type Images. — In strictness, every perception or image 
of a particular thing, say a table or a dictionary or a 
study-lamp, differs in some slight degree from every other. 
At one time, one is most vividly conscious of one aspect of 
an object; at another, some other feature is most promi- 
nent. In my perception, say of my study-lamp, now one 
property, now another — its general form, size, weight, col- 
oring, odor, steadiness or flicker of the flame, the sound it 
makes when handled- — is most conspicuous. Yet out of all 
these various perceptions of the lamp — one may possibly 
say, despite them — some one image tends to precipitate and 
to get itself accredited as the characteristic image of the 
lamp. In like manner, the various perceptions of such ob- 
jects as one's watch, one's pen-knife, text-books, pictures, 
articles of furniture, the house in which one lives, one's 
friends — tend to issue in definite imaginal forms which 
serve to designate these objects. 

Class Images. — - The perception of a number of individual 
objects, which so far resemble one another that we apply 
to them the same class-name, tends to produce a general 



146 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

or class image whereby we represent or refer to the group 
as a whole or to any one of its individual members. Thus, 
the image of a roundish figure of a given size and golden 
yellow in color means either oranges as a class or the indi- 
vidual members thereof. So also numerous perceptions of 
pine-apples, oak trees, violin tones, 'Ophelias', Merry-go- 
Rounds, polar bears, tend to give rise to class images which, 
while they are individual as mental experiences, serve to 
designate entire classes of objects and also the individuals 
belonging thereto. The type-images, of the preceding para- 
graph, are formed from numerous perceptions and images 
of the sa7ne objects; whereas, the class images are pre- 
cipitates from numerous perceptions and images of similar- 
objects. 

Individual Differences in Mental Imagery. — "Until 
very recent years," James wrote in 1890, "it was 
supposed by all philosophers that there was a typ- 
ical human mind which all individual minds were 
like, and that propositions of universal validity 
could be laid down about such faculties as 'the 
Imagination'. Lately, however, a mass of revela- 
tions have poured in, which make us see how false 
such a view is. There are imaginations, not 'the 
Imagination', and they must be studied in detail. 

The first breaker of ground in 

this direction was Fechner, who, in 1860, published 
the results of a most careful comparison of his own 
optical after-images, with his optical memory-pic- 
tures, together with accounts by several other indi- 
viduals of their optical memory-pictures. The re- 
sult was to show a great personal diversity." "It 
would be interesting," Fechner remarked, "tt> work 
up the subject statistically," that is, to make a sta- 
tistical study of individual differences in respect to 



MENTAL IMAGES 147 

imagery. This study was undertaken later by Gal- 
ton, an English scientist, and the publication of his 
results in 1880 marks, James observes, "an era in 
descriptive Psychology." 

Galton employed the now well-known 'question- 
aire method', which consists essentially in 'submit- 
ting a certain number of printed questions to a large 
number of persons', the questions in this case call- 
ing for data in regard to the mental imagery of the 
persons interrogated. Galton's questionaire is pop- 
ularly known as the 'Breakfast-table' questionaire; 
but besides questions in regard to the clearness 
and brightness of the individual's image of the 
breakfast scene, the coloring of the china, the arti- 
cles of food or "whatever may have been on the 
table", it contained inquiries in regard to the visual 
imagery of 'panoramic views', the location of things 
seen mentally, the command over visual images, 
images of the light and color of clouded skies, visual 
images of persons, of scenery, of numerals and 
dates, images aroused by printed descriptions of 
scenery, hallucinations, the use of visual imagery 
in mechanics, geometry, mental arithmetic, and 
chess-playing blindfold. It included also questions 
relating to the faintness or vividness of images of 

(a) sound, as 'of the ringing of a church bell, the 
hum of bees, the clinking of tea-spoons and saucers ; 

(b) of smells, as of tar, a rose, tobacco; (c) of 
tastes, as of salt, lemon juice, chocolate; (d) of 
touch, as of velvet, sand, dough; (e) other sensa- 
tions — heat, hunger, cold, thirst; also a question 
regarding the individual's aptitude for mentally 



148 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

recalling music, or for imagining it.' Hence, the 
fuller title which Galton employed — "Questions on 
Visualizing and other Allied Faculties."^ 

The subject of individual differences in mental 
imagery is one to which great theoretic interest nat- 
urally attaches. It has, besides, a number of prac- 
tical bearings. For instance, students of the educa- 
tive process hold that it is practically important that 
teachers shall know the capacity of their individual 
pupils for the various kinds of imagery. Accord- 
ingly, since Galton's time the question of imaginal 
types has received much attention, and many meth- 
ods of determining individual capacities and vari- 
ations in respect to imagery have been employed. 
"The principal result of the investigations is," as 
Titchener says, "the proof that type is far more 
variable and more complex than had at first been 
supposed." Still, certain minor results of consider- 
able interest, mainly corroborative of the views of 
the earlier students in the field, have been definitely 
established, and we shall dwell upon them for a 
little while. These, so far as our present interest 
goes, may be summed up in the statement that indi- 
viduals differ greatly in respect to, (1) the kind 
of mental imagery which is characteristic of, or pre- 
dominant in, their remembering, imagining, and 
thinking; (2) the vividness, distinctness, clearness, 
stability, completeness, and accuracy of their char- 
acteristic images. We shall first indicate some of 
the more easily observed differences among individ- 



^ GaIjTONj Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Development, 



MENTAL IMAGES 149 

uals in respect to their favorite or predominant 
kinds of imagery. These are usually described in 
text-books of psychology under such headings as 
"Imaginal Types," "Types of Mental Imagery," 
"Ideational Types." In later paragraphs we shall 
describe briefly certain differences among individ- 
uals in respect to the attributes of their character- 
istic images. 

Imaginal Types. — The most conspicuous and the 
most interesting difference among individuals, as 
regards their imagery, is in respect to the sensory 
content, or basis, of the images w^hich are most 
prominent in their trains of consciousness. Thus 
the images of one class of minds consist largely of 
visual material, they are mental pictures of things 
seen; for another class, they consist chiefly of 
sounds, of things heard ; for still a third, images of 
things seen or heard or 'felt' arise w^ith equal ease 
and frequency. Differences of this kind appear 
very clearly when one examines the answers which 
different persons give to such a list of questions as 
those first used by Galton ; or the following, selected 
from Seashore's exercises:' 

(1) Can you image the color of a green leaf? Can you 
image the brightness of a gray stone? the form of a tea- 
cup? Can you form a visual image of a moving express 
train? Can you hold fairly constant for ten seconds the 
image of the color of a rose? 

(2) Can you image the sound of the hum of bees? Can 
you image the characteristic tone-quality of a violin? Can 
you repeat in auditory imagery the air of a familiar piece 
of music? 

(3) Can you image, in motor terms, yourself clenching 



^Elementary Experiments in Psychology, 1908, p. 108 ff. 



150 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

your fist? Do you get motor imagery when recalling words 
like Paderewski? Bubble? Can you form a motor image 
of the weight of a pound of butter? 

(4) Can you form a tactual image of the pressure of 
velvet? of the flow of water against a finger? 

(5) Can you image the odor of coffee? of an onion? of 
camphor? 

(6) Can you image the taste of sugar? of quinine? 

(7) Can you image the coldness of ice cream? the 
warmth of hot tea? 

(8) Can you image a toothache or headache? 

It is very likely, in other words, that the careful 
answering of these questions by a large number of 
persons, say a class of university students, would 
bring to light striking differences in imaginal type. 
Thus, some of the persons interrogated would an- 
swer the first list of questions, those pertaining to 
visual images, 'Yes', instantly and confidently, but 
would be hesitant and doubtful as to the other seven 
lists. These we should at once describe as 'visual- 
izers.' Possibly others would show a like readiness 
and confidence in answering the second list of ques- 
tions in the affirmative, but would shov/ hesitancy 
and doubt as to the other lists : they can image 
sounds, but are unable to form unequivocal images 
of things seen, touched, or of movements, odors, 
tastes, temperatures or pains. These are known as 
the 'audiles'. A third class of persons would affirm 
that they constantly have vivid, life-like images of 
the stresses and strains which accompany the move- 
ment of the organs of speech when talking, or the 
movement of the limbs as in skating or in throwing 
a ball or in writing. These are called 'motiles', and 
their favorite images are the motor, or kinaesthetic. 



MENTAL IMAGES 151 

"It has been asserted', says Angell, 'that we have no 
genuine motor, or kinaesthetic, images, [verbal or other J 
because every attempt to think of a movement results in 
our actually making the movement in a rudimentary way; 
so that we get a kinaesthetic sensation instead of a kinaes- 
thetic image. There can be no doubt that this is often the 
case; e. g., the effort [to image the 'feel' of the word 'college'] 
will by most persons be found to be accompanied by definite 
sensations in the tongue and throat Mean- 
time, there seems to be no reason in the nature of the case 
why we may not have kinaesthetic images in a form definitely 
distinguishable from the kinaesthetic sensations to which 
they may lead." ^ Titchener, in reference to the same point, 
says, briefly, "kinaesthetic images are extremely diflftcult to 
distinguish from kinaesthetic sensations. The difference, in 
the writer's experience, is largely a matter of complexity: 
the mental nod which gives assent to an argument is more 
schematic, involves fewer muscles and involves them less 
solidly than an actual nod". " 

The answers to the questions on p. 149 f . would 
also reveal the fact that a large majority of the 
persons questioned have good imagery in a number 
of perceptual (sensory) fields, particularly visual 
and auditory, and possibly motor and tactual. Their 
imagery is said to be of the 'mixed' type. 

"When a mind is of this constitution", says Titchener, 
"an operatic performance (for example) is remembered 
[imaged] in all three ways, as something seen, as some- 
thing heard, and as something 'felt' : stage and performers 
are visible once more, voice and orchestra are heard again, 
and the ease or difficulty with which the singers reached 

their high and low notes is sympathetically revived 

But an equal balance of tendencies is rare: even when a 
mind is to be classed as 'mixed' in type, experiment gen- 
erally shows that some one side of it (the eye-side, ear-side, 
etc.) is more strongly developed than the others."'' 

iAngelLj Psychology, 1908, p. 199 f. = Titchener^ A Text- 
Book of Psychology, 1910, p. 199 f. ^A Primer of Psychology, 
1907, p. 125 f. 



152 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Finally, the answers would indicate, what is the 
fact, that the tactual, olfactory, gustatory, thermal, 
and pain images of question groups four to eight 
(Seashore's list) are comparatively infrequent, and 
that the number of persons who experience any of 
them is relatively small. 

The student may have observed that so far our 
study in this section has pertained mainly to the 
imagery of concrete objects and their attributes. 
We have now to speak briefly of — 

Symbol Imagery. — The student of the pure sci- 
ences — mathematics, astronomy, physics, for ex- 
ample — is required to think about the various 
phases of his subject by means of symbols appro- 
priate thereto. His memory of the facts and laws 
of his science consists in large measure of a store of 
signs, symbols and formulae; and his increasing 
proficiency consists partly in increasing facility in 
manipulating the symbols of his particular field of 
study. Moreover, it is frequently remarked that 
the highest success in the pursuit of the abstract 
sciences requires that the ordinary forms of imagery 
shall be subordinated to practice in marshalling the 
symbols of these disciplines, that a stream of con- 
crete imagery is a hindrance rather than a help. 
One of the 'notable results' of Galton's investigation 
was that 'scientific men, as a class, have feeble 
powers of visual representation', from which Gal- 
ton concludes that 'an over-ready perception of sharp 
mental pictures is antagonistic to the acquirement 
of habits of highly generalized and abstract thought.' 



MENTAL IMAGES 153 

It is clear, however, that comparatively few per- 
sons employ in their remembering, imagining, 
thinking, planning, the special forms of symbolic 
imagery, such as are employed by the man of 
science. The most common form is the verbal, 
which, in Stout's opinion, 'plays a leading part in 
the mental life of most of us'. In some of us, he 
writes, 'such verbal images are almost exclusively 
used.' To the same effect Calkins says, "Contrasted 
with all these classes of concrete imagination [of 
panoramas, dinner-parties, concerts, etc.] are the 
verbal types, which are far more prevalent than any 
one, save the psychologist, realizes. In the expe- 
rience of many people, these altogether crowd out 
concrete imaginings." At all events, we are well 
within the bounds when we say that the imagery 
of educated adults consists to a considerable extent 
of word images. Thus, in order to think of trees 
and their properties, it is sufficient, ordinarily, to 
have some sort of image of the descriptive words we 
use. We know that trees are leaved in summer and 
bare in winter ; but in order to know this, we do not 
need to picture either their summer leafiness or 
their winter barrenness. We know that leaves rus- 
tle in the wind and that- the bark of oaks is rough, 
but we do not need to image the rustling or 'feel' 
the roughness. Again, when you recall the persons 
whom you have met or the places you have visited, 
in the course of a day, it is sufficient to recall their 
names, though doubtless, for most of us, there is an 
accompaniment of concrete imagery, images of the 
persons' appearance, dress, gesticulation, voices, or 



154 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of the size, form, contents, decorations of the build- 
ings, offices, rooms, shops that were visited. In like 
manner, when we plan some future action, say a 
visit to a friend's house, we employ words to out- 
line our plan rather than imagery of the streets and 
roads we intend to follow, or of our friend's house, 
or of his greeting, or of the persons we shall meet 
on our arrival. In short, our ordinary daily think- 
ing, remembering, planning, is made up in large 
part of the images of words that suffice to designate 
our subjects of thought, the things with which, for 
the time being, we are concerned. 

In reference to the advantages of words over concrete 
imagery as mental tools, James writes, "In fact, we may 
suspect them [words] to be for most purposes better than 
terms with a rich, imaginative coloring. The scheme of 
relationship and the conclusion being the essential things in 
thinking, that kind of mind-stuff which is handiest will be 
the best for the purpose. Now words, uttered or unex- 
pressed, are the handiest mental elements that we have". ' 

The declaration that words constitute the best, the most 
convenient, instruments of thinking will raise doubts in the 
minds of those who have not given the matter careful con- 
sideration. Indeed, 'thinking' for most persons consists 
mainly of trains of concrete imagery; their thoughts would 
be pale and sparse if they were bereft of these. Neverthe- 
less Galton and James are right in maintaining that, for 
purposes of abstract thinking, vivid concrete imagery is a 
hindrance; bare symbols are its best instruments. 

The Kinds of Verbal Imagery. — We have seen in 
the preceding paragraphs that as regards their pre- 
dominant forms of imagery, individuals may be 

1 Principles of Psychology, I, p. 266. 



MENTAL IMAGES 155 

classified broadly as visuals, audiles, motiles, and 
mixed. Now the same classification holds in refer- 
ence to the characteristic modes of imaging words. 
Thus the verbal imagery of one class of persons is 
predominantly visual ; of another, it is chiefly audi- 
tory ; of a third, kinsesthetic ; while that of a fourth 
class of persons is described as 'mixed'. 

-Visual. — It requires only ordinary powers of 
verbal visualization to image a few words or sen- 
tences or even a short paragraph. If, however, one 
is highly gifted in this respect, whole pages of 
printed or written matter may, on occasion, unroll 
before the mind's eye. Galton, in the report already 
quoted, says : "I have many cases of persons men- 
tally reading off scores when playing the piano-forte, 
or manuscript when they are making speeches. One 
statesman has assured me that a certain hesitation 
in utterance which he has at times is due to his 
being plagued by the image of his manuscript 
speech with its original erasures and corrections. 

Some few persons see mentally in 

print every word that is uttered ; they attend to the 
visual equivalent and not to the sound of the 
words. "^ The writer once knew a student who 
could 'read off' an entire Act of Julius Caesar as 
well as if the book which he had used in memorizing 
the play lay open before him. 

Auditory. — One may also imagine words as heard. 
The words imaged may be those spoken by oneself 



^ Galton^ Inquiries into Human Facility and its Developtiient. 



156 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

or by others, they may be the words of a conversa- 
tion to which one has listened, or the questions and 
answers of attorney and witness in a court-room, 
or the words spoken by actors, with characteristic 
modulation, in reading their lines in a play. Cal- 
kins observes that, "Such masters of musical verse 
as Sophokles, Tennyson, and Swinburne must hav« 
auditory verbal imagery." 

Kinaesthetic. — "Most persons," says James, "on 
being asked in what sort of terms they imagine 
words, will say, 'in terms of hearing.' It is not until 
their attention is expressly drawn to the point that 
they find it difficult to say whether auditory images 
or motor images connected with the organs of artic- 
ulation predominate. A good way of bringing the 
difficulty to consciousness is that proposed by 
Strieker, [whose verbal imagery consisted, accord- 
ing to his own account, exclusively of articulatory 
images] : Partly open your mouth and then imag- 
ine any word with labials or dentals in it, such as 
'bubble', 'toddle', (puddle). Is your image under 
these conditions distinct ? To most people the image 
is at first 'thick', as the sound of the word would 
be if they tried to pronounce it with the lips parted. 
Many can never imagine the words clearly with 
the mouth open; others succeed after a few pre- 
liminary trials."^ Experiments of this sort show 
that in our verbal imagery the motor, or kinaes- 



1 James here refers, doubtless, to the motor images of words, 
since the open mouth is not a hindrance to the formation of visual 
or auditory verbal images, at any rate not in the present writer's 
experience. 



MENTAL IMAGES 157 

thetic, factor plays an important, though usually 
unobserved part/ 

Mixed. — A person whose verbal imagery is of the 
mixed type is able either to see or hear or 'feel' 
words in imagination as inclination prompts or 
occasion requires; but, as in the case of concrete 
imagery, some one form of verbal imagery usually 
predominates in the individual experience. 

One general observation concerning the verbal 
imaginal types seems warranted, namely, that there 
is a stronger tendency to the concurrence, in indi- 
vidual experience, of two or more forms of verbal 
imagery than there is in the imagery of concrete 
objects or situations. Thus one's general imaginal 
type may be unmistakably visual, while one's images 
of words may readily occur in any one of the three 
forms already described. This is probably due to 
the fact that we are constantly experiencing words 
in varied ways; we are all the while reading 
or hearing or speaking or writing words, and it is 
but natural that our imagery of them should reflect, 
in some measure, our immediate, everyday expe- 
rience with them. 

The Attributes of Characteristic Images Differ. — 
In the immediately preceding sections we have been 
studying the ways in which individuals differ in 
respect to their dominant or favorite kinds of 
imagery. It remains to make a little clearer, than 
has been done hitherto, that individuals differ in 



1 Titchener thinks it improbable that in verbal imagery tlie au- 
ditory-kinsesthetic elements occur separately, 'although the emphasif? 
may be preponderantly upon the one or the other,' 



158 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

reference to the vividness, distinctness, clearness, 
and so on, of their characteristic images. 

Vividness.— Galton, in his pioneer work, was con- 
cerned chiefly with the variations in the 'vividness' 
of the imagery of different persons, although he 
did not sharply distinguish this attribute from cer- 
tain others. That this was his chief concern is indi- 
cated by the fact that the great majority of his 
'Questions on Visualizing and other allied Faculties' 
were in reference to this property, and also by his 
arrangement of the replies to the questions pertain- 
ing to the visualization of the breakfast table in a 
scale of nine degrees of 'vividness'. Moreover, ex- 
cepting kind, or quality, most of the studies of indi- 
vidual variations in imagery that have been made 
subsequently have related, mainly, to variations in 
vividness. Such questions as — Can you image the 
color of a yellow ribbon ? the tone-quality of a given 
musical instrument? the pressure of velvet? usually 
mean : Are your images of these things vivid, life- 
like? Seashore's chapter on "Mental Images" like- 
wise reflects the dominant interest. In it he directs 
the student to fix clearly in mind the following scale 
in testing 'the capacity for vividness of imagery:' 



0. 

1. 

2. 


No imagery at all. 
Very faint. 
Faint. 


3. 

4. 


Fairly vivid. 
Vivid. 


5. 
6. 


Very vivid. 

As vivid as in perception, 



MENTAL IMAGES 159 

It is clear, however, as Seashore says, that "such 
factors [attributes] as vividness, stability, and in- 
tegrity of the image do not necessarily vary to- 
gether. An image may be very vivid, but flitting; 
it may be complete, but faint." Accordingly, a com- 
plete study of an individual's imagery would in- 
clude, besides the enumeration of its several kinds, 
the careful discrimination of the latter's attributes, 
and their gradation according to some such scale as 
that employed by Galton or Seashore in studying 
vividness. 

Distinctness. — The following may serve as ex- 
amples of questions designed to draw special atten- 
tion to the attribute of distinctness : Is your image 
of the tone-quality of a banjo perfectly distinct 
from that of a guitar? Do you tend to confuse the 
visual images of one face with that of another which 
resembles the first? Is your image of the smooth- 
ness to 'touch' of silk clearly different from your 
image of the smoothness of glass? Again, do you 
image distinctly the several parts or features of a 
photograph? or of a wall-paper pattern? or of a 
strain of music? or the taste ingredients of an 
article of food? 

Stability. — Individuals differ also as regards the 
stability of their images. Some observers report 
that their characteristic images are stable, endur- 
ing, easily controlled; others, that theirs are tran- 
sient, fluctuating, capricious. 

Completeness and Accuracy. — If an image repre- 
sents all the separate items of an original expe- 
rience, it is said to be complete ; if it does not repre- 



160 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sent all these separate items, it is incomplete. Ac- 
curacy refers to the fidelity with which an image 
copies a sensory or perceptual experience, to the 
absence of foreign elements in the 'structure of the 
image'. Needless to say, individuals differ in re- 
spect to the degree to which their images approach 
completeness and accuracy. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. VIIL 
Colvin: The Learning Process, VIL 

Galton : Inquiries into Human Faculty and its Develop- 
ment. 
James: Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Ch. XVIII. 
Seashore: Elementary Experiments in Psychology, Ch. IX. 
Stout: A Manual of Psychology, Book IV, Ch. I. 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 105-120. 



CHAPTER VII 

ATTENTION 

The Nature of Attention. — Attention, perhaps 
more than any other topic in the whole field of 
psychology, is overrun with metaphors. We read 
of attention that wanders, flits hither and thither, 
or — lingers, pauses, hovers over its object; of 
attention that is drawn, lured, commanded, at- 
tracted, fascinated, captured, or — is repelled, 
diverted, distracted, freed. Attention is often de- 
scribed as concentrated, focused, or as scattered, 
diffused, spread-out, dispersed. Again, attention 
selects and seizes objects and lets them go again. 
In still other instances, it is directed toward or 
aimed at given objects which it illuminates. In 
popular speech it is also either weak or powerful, 
waking or slumbering, continuous or intermittent, 
prolonged or transitory, spasmodic or regular, alert 
or sluggish, and so on. It would be easy to select 
from the current psychological literature several 
such pages illustrating the figurative terms in which 
our thinking concerning attention is cast; the fore- 
going examples will suffice. 

Now these and similar everyday expressions de- 
scribe roughly certain facts of our mental life; 
otherwise they would not have gained such wide- 
spread acceptance. Moreover, it must be admitted 

11 (161) 



162 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

at once that it is well-nigh impossible to speak of 
'attention' at all, even in a scientific treatment of 
the topic, without employing them. And yet, for 
certain reasons which will be stated in later par- 
agraphs (p. 181 ff.), psychology must set aside the 
figurative accounts, and ask what, in fact, attention 
is. When we do this, and when we adhere closely 
to the work of describing consciousness, and ask 
ourselves what general fact or characteristic of our 
mental life is named by the term attention, we 
answer — the fact of m^tal clearness. Attention 
is a general or class name for all clear consciousr 
nesses. Whence it follows that the term, when used 
to designate a particular fact of consciousness, 
means a clear consciousness ; a case of attention is 
a case of mental clearness. 

The term 'attention' implies that a typical 'field' of con- 
sciousness consists of a central, relatively clear, area and an 
outlying-, obscure area. In this case, 'attention' when used 
in reference to a given consciousness, means that it is focal, 
is in the center of the field. 

It may be remarked that 'attention' is often used synon- 
ymously with 'mental activity', especially when the activity 
is conceived to be of an intensive sort. For instance, every 
case of intensive, restricted perceptional activity is a case of 
'attention'. Thus, to 'attend to' the features of a drawing 
or a landscape, or to the separate voices in a chorus, is to 
'look' carefully, intently, in the one case, and listen, in the 
other. Thinking and imagining, as forms of mental activity, 
are also cases of attention. Thus, to compare, to analyze, 
to weigh, to think about, two possible courses of action is to 
'attend' to them. Every case of mental activity is, from this 
point of view, a case of attention. Observe next that it is 



ATTENTION 163 

not difficult to translate 'attention is mental activity' into 
'attention is mental clearness', since one's meaning is the 
same whether one says, 'I am attending to the object' or 'my 
consciousness of the object is central, focal, clear.' 

■ The Conditions of Attention. — By the 'conditions' 
of attention, or mental clearness, we shall mean the 
circumstances which favor the appearance of clear 
consciousnesses. Thus we may ask what circum- 
stances favor clear perceptions of present objects, 
their properties and conditions, on the one hand, or 
clear images of past or future events, on the other. 
Or, from a slightly different point of view, we may 
inquire why, at a given moment in individual expe- 
rience, one conscious process, rather than any other 
possible one, should occupy the center of the con- 
scious field, the area of greatest clearness. It is 
evident that a complete answer to the latter ques- 
tion involves, besides an enumeration of the primary 
conditions of attention, also a statement of their 
inter-relations. 

It is customary to distinguish broadly two classes 
of conditions of attention: the objective, or external, 
and the subjective, or internal. The term objective, 
or external, refers to the circumstances outside the 
stream of consciousness which favor attention; the 
term subjective, or internal, refers to those charac- 
teristics of the individual's present or past mental 
life which favor attention. 

It should be remembered that when a given condition is 
said to favor attention the statement holds unless some other 
condition or conditions arise to counteract the influence of 
the first. 



164 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The Objective Conditions of Attention. — Most 
conspicuous among the objective conditions of atten- 
tion are certain properties of sensory stimuli. Other 
things equal, a stimulus that is intense or prolonged 
or novel or frequently repeated or sudden in appear- 
ance or that changes in character, in size, in position, 
or in intensity, is likely to 'attract' attention, or, in 
our terms, to excite a clear consciousness. Thus, 
bright lights, loud sounds, strong odors, smart 
blows, are said to force themselves upon our atten- 
tion. The consciousness which they arouse imme- 
diately becomes focal, clear. — The prolongation of 
the locomotive's whistling at crossings, the continual 
clatter of the fire-engine as it rushes along the street, 
the alarm clock set to ring for sixty seconds, are 
practical applications of the observation that pro- 
longed stimuli excite attention. — Novelties of all 
kinds are notoriously attractive. Other things equal, 
novel sights and sounds, strange objects, new expe- 
riences easily 'catch' the attention. The notice 
which a stranger, or a new kind of vehicle, or even 
a new dog, in the community attracts are familiar 
instances of the influence of novelty. — Impressions 
frequently repeated, even though they lack other 
exciting qualities, are likely to arrest attention. 
Witness the results that the persevering advertiser 
obtains from comparatively stupid advertisements; 
witness also the diligence which the aspirant to 
political honors shows in keeping his name before 
the public. — Suddenness in the appearance of sens- 
ory impressions, if unexpected, like a flash of light 



ATTENTION 165 

in the darkness, or the sharp crackling of one's 
study-fire, or a sudden call from an unexpected 
quarter, is one of the most familiar of their inher- 
ently exciting qualities. 

Objects that show changes are likely to catch 
attention. These changes may be either in the 
nature or size or position of the object, or in the 
intensity of the impression which it arouses. For 
example, a blue signal replaced by a red one attracts 
the attention of the pilot or engine man ; the small 
boy observes at once any marked variations in the 
size of his daily allowance of favorite foods ; and the 
fact that moving objects attract attention is too 
well known to require illustration. Change in the 
intensity of a previously unobserved sensory stim- 
ulus, whether visual, auditory, olfactory, or what 
not, particularly if sudden, tends to draw attention 
to the exciting object. 

Two other classes of changes should be men- 
tioned in this connection. (1) It is well known that 
we are unobservant of the permanent, unchanging 
features of our daily surroundings. The articles 
of furniture in our homes, the buildings and trees 
along the streets that we travel over daily, the noise 
of street traffic, the familiar voices of people talk- 
ing, the puffing of distant locomotives or the rumble 
of trains drawn thereby, even pains that are with 
us constantly, all cease in time to attract attention. 
But changes in our customary surroundings, for ex- 
ample, a rearrangement of the furniture or of the 
decorations of our study, are noticed at once. And 



166 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the obtrusiveness, or aggressiveness, of such a thing 
as a shrill whistle, or the vicious barking of a dog, 
or of a shooting pain, although due in part to cer- 
tain characteristics of the stimulus itself, e. g., its 
inherent intensity or the suddenness of its appear- 
ance, is also due partly to the fact that such stimuli 
produce a change in the total effect of the sensory 
impressions to which we are accustomed. 

(2) Changes in the total situations to which we 
are from time to time temporarily adjusted, or im- 
pressions that are incongruous therewith, excite 
attention. For example, the passengers on an ocean 
liner, accustomed to the splashing of waves, the 
creaking of beams, the whistles and bells of the 
boat, the whir of the propellers, human voices, are 
startled when they for the first time hear the cow- 
like bellowing of a siren or buoy. The sound at- 
tracts attention because of its sheer incongruity 
with the surroundings to which the passengers have 
become so quickly adjusted; on land, the sound 
would likely pass unobserved. 

The Subjective Conditions o£ Attention. — It is 
not easy to draw a sharp line between the objective 
and the subjective conditions of attention, since 
many objects, catch the attention, by virtue of con- 
ditions, some of which are subjective and some ob- 
jective. For example, shall we say that at a public 
gathering a disturbance in the gallery attracts our 
attention because it interrupts our listening to the 
speaker's words or because of some quality of the 
disturbance itself? perhaps on both accounts. So 
of many other stimuli : they excite attention on 



ATTENTION 167 

account of both their physical properties and be- 
cause they interrupt or favor the trend of one's 
consciousness. And it is especially difficult to dis- 
tinguish the subjective and the objective conditions 
of attention in respect to objects that are natively, 
or instinctively, interesting. For example, novelty, 
which we have classed among the objective condi- 
tions of attention, clearly belongs, from another 
point of view, to the subjective group; we naturally, 
instinctively, attend to novel things. Still, it is 
possible to enumerate a number of conditions of 
attention that are primarily subjective, belong to 
the observer's present consciousness or to his habit- 
ual mental trend. 

The most general subjective condition of attention 
is mental wakefulness. When we are mentally alert, 
wide awake, mental processes easily attain clear- 
ness; whereas, if we are lethargic, drowsy, the 
components of the conscious stream tend to run on 
a dead level of dullness ; nothing is prominent, clear. 

A second subjective condition which favors atten- 
tion is the possession of an image or idea of the 
forthcoming object; and this depends upon our 
having experienced it or its like on some earlier 
occasion. More popularly stated, the rule is that 
we can attend more easily, more readily, to a com- 
ing object if we know beforehand what sort of 
thing to expect. The teacher of biology does not 
rest with directing his students to go forth and 
study amoebae and spirogyra; he knows that they 
must have at least a rough provisional mental prep- 
aration for finding and studying the specimens, so 



168 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

he first tells them what sort of things they are. In 
these and similar cases the mind is said to be pre- 
pared to apperceive, to attend to, the object when 
it is presented to sense. In short, attention to an 
object is facilitated if we have an anticipatory image 
or idea thereof or of objects similar thereto. 

Perhaps most persons, if asked, what is the most 
important subjective condition of attention? would 
say, the will, purpose, or desire, to attend. And 
undoubtedly the cases of attention most frequently 
remarked originate in this way. We 'will' to attend 
in the face of distracting impressions to a given 
object of theoretical or practical interest; for ex- 
ample, to the meaning of a difficult paragraph and 
to become deaf to distracting noises ; or, in pitching 
ball, to attend to the manipulation of the ball and 
to disregard the jeers from the bleachers. Now, 
the will or purpose to attend, as Pillsbury points 
out, 'shows three degrees of consciousness'. Some- 
times the purpose controlling attention is very defin- 
itely present. Thus, to use Pillsbury's example, if 
one is shown for an instant a few bits of paper of 
different shapes and colors and is asked at the same 
time, — what colors do you see ? one is able after- 
ward to tell pretty accurately what colors were 
shown, but can tell little about their shapes. The 
question limited and defined the purpose of the 
moment and so the number of items that could attain 
clearness. At other times, the purpose, while pres- 
ent and operative, is less definitely conscious than 
when it is aroused by a definite question, as in the 
case just cited. Thus one gathers up the news items 



Attention 169 

in the daily paper, but does not observe the size of 
the type or the number of cokimns on the page; or 
one visits a picture gallery and brings away images 
and thoughts concerning the pictures, but knows 
nothing of the construction of doors, windows, or 
floors. The general purpose, though only vaguely 
conscious, included in the one case the news of the 
day, but not the type and paper columns ; in the sec- 
ond, it included an appreciation of the pictures, but 
not an inspection of the construction of the building. 
In other cases, the purpose falls within the scope of 
one's fixed mental habits and is even less definitely 
conscious than in the cases just cited. Illustrations 
are found in what we call the observational habits 
of the professional or business man. We say one 
naturally attends, and without being aware of it, 
to matters that pertain to one's trade or profession. 
The physician observes disease symptoms, the bot- 
anist observes plants, the farmer, crops and live- 
stock, the architect, carpenter, or mason the features 
of building construction, the cook, the ingredients 
of foods, even in the complete absence of a definite 
purpose to do so. Attention is determined, in such 
cases, by the observer's bias, mental bent, the 
habitual trend of his thinking. 

The influence of trend or general purpose in determining 
the objects of one's attention is illustrated in the case of a 
young student in a dramatic school whom the writer chances 
to know. This particular student, for certain personal rea- 
sons, has elected to play the 'old man' parts, and in prepar- 
ation for his work gives a great deal of attention to observing 
the manners, speech, and mental traits of aged men. The 



170 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

trend of his purposive attention lies along this line. Ac- 
cordingly, he sees and observes every elderly man while 
other persons escape his notice. 

To summarize: the subjective conditions of atten- 
tion are (1) mental alertness, (2) the possession 
of an image or an idea of the forthcoming object, 
(3) the purpose, or will, to attend, which may exist 
in varying degrees of clearness and definiteness. 

The Motor Concomitants of Attention. — The every- 
day expressions, 'attentive attitude', 'strained atten- 
tion', 'fascinated attention', 'brown study', and so 
on, refer pretty definitely to the motor concomitants 
of attentive states. 

Some of these motor changes are characteristic 
of attention to sense objects; others belong rather 
to the imaginal and thought processes. It is, there- 
fore, convenient for purposes of description to dis- 
tinguish, (1) the motor concomitants of sensory 
attention, and (2) the motor concomitants of idea- 
tional attention. 

One may also distinguish rather easily the motor 
concomitants of sensory attention, according to the 
immediacy with which they subserve the attentional 
consciousness, as either (a) accommodatory, adap- 
tive, or (b) inhibitory. 

The general and immediate purpose of the accom- 
modatory, or adaptive, movements is, as the name 
implies, to bring the sense organs into those rela- 
tions to stimuli that are most favorable for the 



ATTENTION 171 

reception of clear and distinct impressions. Thus, 
in looking attentively, the head and eyes are ordi- 
narily turned toward the object, the two eyes con- 
verge so that the stimulus will fall upon the fovea 
of each, the most sensitive spot of the retina, and 
the lens is adjusted to the distance of the object. In 
listening attentively, the whole body tends to lean 
toward the source of the sound, or at least we turn 
the sharper ear in that direction. In painstaking 
'touch', as when trying to determine the quality of 
a piece of cloth, or the smoothness of a surface, we 
work over the articles with the hands and fingers. 
In trying to determine the taste of a substance, we 
move the tongue so as to stimulate the most sensi- 
tive taste organs; and in order to get the clearest 
olfactory impressions we deflect the air currents up- 
ward to the olfactory area in the upper nasal cavity. 
Besides these movements which serve immedi- 
ately to adjust the sense-organs for the most 
favorable reception of stimuli, certain others sub- 
serve the functioning of the sense-organs indirectly 
by shutting out irrelevant or distracting stimuli; 
these latter are called inhibitory movements. The 
most easily observed inhibitory movements are — 
the cessation of bodily movements when looking or 
listening intently. Thus, if one is walking, the pace 
is slackened, or one even comes to a stand-still in 
order to listen to a faint sound. Breathing is also 
affected in all cases of wrapt attention to sensory 
stimuli; the rate of breathing is lower and the in- 



172 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

halations are not so deep, whence comes the expres- 
sion, 'breathless attention'. Further, one may fre- 
quently observe that in listening, touching, tasting, 
or smelling attentively, the eyes are closed as if to 
exclude distracting stimuli. 

The motor concomitants of ideational attention — 
attention to images, ideas, thoughts — though less 
conspicuous than those of sensory attention, are 
easily observed when they are once pointed out. 
In visual imagery the eyes often repeat the move- 
ments of actually looking at the imaged object. If 
one is imaging a high building or a mountain range 
the eyes tend to move up and down, right and left, 
as the image develops ; or if the image is of some- 
thing spread out in space, like a large painting or a 
college campus, the eyes also tend to move over the 
imaged area. This often involves, besides the move- 
ments of the eyes, actual or incipient movements of 
the head or of the whole body. Again, in trying to 
image sounds one may detect muscular tension in 
the region of the ears ; in imaging tastes, moving 
the tongue and mouth parts facilitates the arousal 
of the taste image ; olfactory imagery almost inevit- 
ably involves slight inhalation, as if to bring the 
odorous particles nearer the olfactory surface; and 
in tactual imagery one may easily find muscular 
twitching and tension in the fingers and hand. In 
fact, it is doubtful whether one can form clear and 
distinct tactual images if these muscular tremors 
are inhibited. In many of these cases of imaging. 



ATTENTION 173 

the muscular actions present may be viewed, to use 
Sully's words, 'as survivals or partial reproductions 
of the motor concomitants of the original sensa- 
tions.' 

The motor processes just enumerated may be 
regarded as concomitants of the rise and develop- 
ment of clear images. Other mental activities, more 
properly called thought processes, comparing, judg- 
ing, reasoning, especially if they pertain to new and 
difficult topics, are usually marked by characteristic 
bodily attitudes : e. g., the whole body is motionless, 
the head is held in a certain position, the jaws are 
firmly closed, breathing is shallower, the pulse 
undergoes changes of rate and strength, the eyes 
are wholly or partially closed. 

The Sensory Concomitants of Attention. — "With 
the motor concomitant phenomena [of attention],' 
says Kiilpe, 'are conjoined certain sensations, which 
thus constitute a characteristic factor in every 
process of attention. They are for the most part 
strain sensations, arising from the adaptation of 
the sense organs and the position of the body or 
limbs ; and they are indicated in the phrases 
'strained attention', 'intent' expectation, and so on."' 
(It is likely that if Kiilpe were revising his text, he 
would say strain sensations constitute a character- 
istic factor of 'some' or 'many' instead of 'every' 
process of attention.) The sensations of strain, 
tension, exertion, though often present in all three 



1 Outlines of Psychology^ § 74, Titchener's Translation, 



174 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

'forms' of attention, (voluntary, involuntary, non- 
voluntary) , are characteristic of voluntary atten- 
tion, and give rise to the popular but erroneous 
view that this form involves the consciousness of 
mental, or spiritual, activity in addition to the other 
conscious factors of the moment. 

The Degrees of Attention. — Sensations and im- 
ages show different degrees of clearness. To illus- 
trate: suppose that at ten o'clock on a given day 
you settle down for an hour's work, at the same 
time recalling that at eleven you are to start to fill 
an important engagement. You get absorbed in 
your work and think nothing more of the engage- 
ment. The hour passes, and the clock begins to 
strike eleven. Now, under the circumstances de- 
scribed it is likely that the first strokes of the clock 
barely get above the threshold of consciousness ; 
you are only dimly conscious of them; then the 
strokes that follow become clearer and clearer until 
toward the end of the series they are at a maximum 
of clearness, and monopolize the field of attention — 
until you think again of your engagement. In de- 
scribing such an experience, we say that the con- 
sciousness of the strokes rises by degrees from dim- 
ness to perfect clearness, or that 'attention to' the 
strokes passes from a minimal to a maximal degree. 

The fact of variation in the clearness of sensa- 
tions and images may be represented by the accom- 
panying diagram (Fig. 32), which is a modification 
of the one employed by Titchener to represent the 
two-level type of the attentive consciousness.' In 



ATTENTION 175 

the figure, the raised part of the upper thin line 
represents the 'field of attention/ or clearness. 

Now, if we think 

r- » of t hi s raised 

part as rising to 
the levels indi- 
cated by the dot- 
ted lines, we shall 
I I have a represen- 

I tation of varia- 
' tion in degree of 
Fig. 32 clearness, the 

number of lines 
in each case depending upon the number of degrees 
of clearness in which a given process may exist. 

It is popularly believed that the degree of attention de- 
pends upon and varies with the amount of muscular strain, 
exertion, effort that forms part of the total experience; that 
tense muscles, knit brows, and the like, indicate a high de- 
gree of attention, and that general relaxation, flaccidity of 
the muscles is symptomatic of a low degree of attention. 
Now the fact is that while this relation holds in some cases, 
the consciousness of strain or effort usually indicates a low 
degree of attention; ordinarily, maximal attention is marked 
by the absence or the obscurity of the feeling of effort. 

The fact of differences of clearness within a given 
field of consciousness may be represented by a dia- 
gram of concentric circles, the innermost represent- 
ing the clearest part of the field, the outer circles 
representing less and less clear parts. The number 
of circles which are employed in particular cases 
will vary with the individual observer's judgment 



176 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

as to the number of distinguishable degrees of clear- 
ness, or attention, that may coexist within the par- 
ticular conscious field. 

The Range of Attention. — One of the conventional 
topics of treatises on Attention is, how many things 
can we attend to at once? Now it is clear that the 
question, as it is usually stated, is full of ambigui- 
ties. What, for example, is meant by 'thing'? Do 
we mean something as simple as dots on a sheet of 
paper? or do we mean something as complex as 
orchestra music or a landscape or a city viewed from 
the roof of a sky-scraper? Again, are the 'things' 
the same or different in kind? If they are sense- 
impressions, are they all visual, or part visual, part 
auditory, part cutaneous? "We must know precisely 
what is meant by 'things' before the question can be 
answered intelligently. Further, what is meant by 
'attend to'? Is the consciousness of each of the 
several objects of attention clear or obscure? What 
is the position of the attended- to object or objects 
in the total conscious field? Further, what degree 
of clearness is meant? minimal or maximal, or some 
intermediate degree? Lastly, it is imperative that 
we give precise meaning to the words 'at once'. Do 
we mean one second or one-half or one-fifth or one- 
hundredth of a second ? Even the expressions — 
'momentary exposure', 'momentary glance', 'momen- 
tary stimulation' are too indefinite to be psycholog- 
ically valuable. It is necessary to tell precisely what 
we mean by 'at once', 'a moment', 'an instant', and 
so on. 



ATTENTION 177 

Experiments upon the range, or scope, of atten- 
tion are sometimes conducted with the necessary 
care in respect to the foregoing points : but very 
frequently they are not; in the latter case, the re- 
sults are worthless. And even when every care is 
taken to fix precisely the conditions of the experi- 
ment, certain other difficulties arise to plague the 
experimenter and to confuse the meaning of his 
results. To illustrate: in the simplest form of the 
experiment on the range of attention the observer 
is given a number of impressions — visual, auditory, 
pressure, what not — having been requested pre- 
viously to tell how many there are, the meaning 
being — how many things did you see, hear, 'feel' 
during the period of stimulation. But since the 
stimulus excites processes in the sensory apparatus 
that continue for a time after the stimulus itself dis- 
appears, the observer reports not only the objects 
of which he was conscious at the moment of stimu- 
lation, but also those suggested by the after effects 
of the stimulus. In other words, the observer, in- 
stead of reporting only the objects of which he was 
conscious at the moment of impression, reports also 
all the objects that 'develop' in consciousness, i. e., 
get named, located, described, after the stimulus 
ceases. Accordingly, in this case, the observer re- 
ports the number of meanings that develop, rather 
than the number of things of which he was definitely 
conscious during the period of stimulation. Pills- 
bury puts this phase of the matter well : 

13 



178 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

"Careful observation," he writes, "of the process of deter- 
mining the number of objects shows that even with short 
exposures the objects are not attended to at once, but are 
impressed upon consciousness and persist for a time in the 
memory after-image, where they may be attended to separ- 
ately and counted. It is as if one took an instantaneous 
photograph of a group of objects and counted them on the 
film after development. The memory after-image persists 
only for a second or two, however, and the number of objects 
that may be seen with a short exposure depends upon the 
number that can be attended to and counted before the 
image disappears. It seems probable from all the experi- 
ments that only a single object may be attended to at once."^ 

In still other cases the observer confuses what he 
knows, or thinks he knows, about the object with 
what was focal at the moment of impression. For 
example, if the stimulus is the printed word 'psy- 
chology', and the observer is asked to report how 
many letters he saw, he will report more than he 
actually saw, even though he be forewarned. He 
sees a few of the letters, knows their customary- 
associates, and irresistibly adds the latter to the 
ones actually seen. 

Our conclusion, then, in respect to the problem 
of the number of things we can attend to at once 
is that the loose, general form in which it is ordi- 
narily stated, does not admit of an answer: 
further, that in the experimental study of the prob- 
lem, it is extremely difficult to adhere strictly to ex- 
perimental conditions. 

The Forms of Attention. — Strictly speaking, there 
is only one kind of attention. All cases of attention. 



1 The Essentials of Psychology, 1911, p. 124, 



ATTENTION 179 

i. e., all clear consciousnesses, are alike, in kind. But 
they may differ in respect to their conditions and 
their concomitants, and these differences are made 
the basis of the classification of the several 'forms' 
of attention; namely, voluntary, involuntary, and 
non-voluntary. 

Voluntary Attention. — One distinctive m.ark of 
voluntary attention is that it is preceded by an ex- 
press volition, a definite purpose to attend. We 
'will' to attend to the details of a laboratory experi- 
ment, to the grammatical forms of a foreign lan- 
guage, to the unfolding of the plot of a novel. Again, 
voluntary attention arises and is maintained in the 
midst of conflicting tendencies. Our 'will' to attend 
to the experiment conflicts with our desire to talk 
to a classmate or to be on the ball ground or simply 
to do nothing in particular. And conflict involves 
muscular tension, changes in heart-beat and rate 
of breathing, and other unlocalized organic changes, 
together v^ith their resulting sensations and feelings 
which we group together under the expression — 
the consciousness of effort. Accordingly^, voluntary 
attention is said to occur in a complex setting of 
sensations and feeling characteristic of the con- 
sciousness of effort ; this is its second distinguishing 
mark, which together with the 'antecedent purpose', 
already mentioned, serve to distinguish voluntary 
attention from the other two forms. 

Involuntary Attention. — Voluntary attention, we 
saw, presupposes an express purpose to attend to a 
given object. The distinctive mark of involuntary 
attention, on the other hand, is that it arises in 



180 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

opposition to the general purpose or interests of 
the moment. It involves a disturbance of the con- 
scious 'set', the dominant trend of one's mental proc- 
esses. As the term mvoluntary implies, it is atten- 
tion against the will, so to say. Further, whereas 
voluntary attention depends primarily upon a prior 
volition, involuntary attention depends rather upon 
the nature or attributes of objects. Stimuli posses- 
sing certain properties, certain kinds of images and 
thoughts, arouse involuntary attention. Thus, sup- 
pose one is engaged in adding a long column of 
figures when suddenly a book falls from the shelf, 
upsets the ink-well and blotches the column one is 
adding, etc. ; one cannot help attending to the dis- 
turbance. In general, intense, sudden, unexpected 
stimuli, noises, flashes of light, disagreeable odors, 
twinges of pain, force attention upon themselves 
and displace the objects of voluntary or non-volun- 
tary attention. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to cite 
illustrations of the fact that images or thoughts that 
are strongly tinged with emotion — say anger, or 
love, or joy, or grief, or hope, or fear, or anxiety — 
tend to obtrude themselves into the stream of con- 
sciousness often against our best efforts to keep them 
out and to attend to other matters. 

Non- Voluntary Attention. — Non-voluntary atten- 
tion is best described by noting wherein it differs 
from the other two forms. As contrasted with the 
voluntary, purposive attention and its attendant 
consciousness of effort, the non-voluntary form 
arises spontaneously and runs its course freely: it 
is purposeless, effortless. Contrasted with involun- 



ATTENTION 181 

tary attention, which marks a disturbance of the 
trend of consciousness and which is often accom- 
panied by disagreeable feelings, the non-voluntary 
form arises in a field that is relatively free, in which 
there is no conflict, and its course is marked ordi- 
narily by agreeable feelings. 

Popularly expressed, non-voluntary attention is 
attention to objects that are interesting, that have 
emotional coloring. The 'interest' may be native, 
instinctive or acquired, derived. Intense, or sud- 
denly appearing stimuli are natively interesting; so 
also are, to use James' list, strange things, moving 
things, wild animals, bright things, pretty things, 
metallic things, words, blows, blood, etc., etc. Non- 
voluntary attention is thus characteristic of child- 
hood; attention to animal pets, colored toys, plays, 
games, child companions and the like make up the 
round of the child's activities. But our interest in 
an object may be acquired, derived. Perhaps most 
of the interests of adults are of this sort. The stu- 
dent's interest in his problems, the merchant's in 
money and markets, the lawyer's in cases and court 
decisions, the physician's interest in the newest dis- 
coveries in pathology are mainly derived, but they 
nevertheless often possess all the warmth and 
energy of our native interests, and the objects to 
which they attach no less certainly impel attention 
of the non-voluntary kind. 

Popular View of Attention. — It remains to de- 
scribe two or three defects of the popular conception 
of attention. In the first place, the popular meaning 
of attention is extremely variable, so variable, in 



182 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

fact, that the term covers by turns all of the mind's 
activities, conditions, and affections. Sometimes, 
perhaps most frequently, it is used synonymously 
with mind, or consciousness. This is its meaning, 
apparently, when one speaks of attention as wan- 
dering, or as being fascinated, or as focussed, con- 
centrated, or of the 'field' of attention. The mean- 
ing would be the same if one spoke of mind as wan- 
dering or of the focusing of consciousness, instead 
of the wandering, focusing, and so on of attention. 
It would probably be safe to assert that in three- 
fourths of the statements in which 'attention' 
oct!urs, one could substitute for it the word con- 
sciousness or mind y/ithout altering the meaning. 

At other times, attention is described as the pecu- 
liar power which the mind possesses of concentrat- 
ing, or focusing, itself upon one of a number of 
possible objects ; it is the mind's concentrating fac- 
ulty, the faculty whereby the field of consciousness 
is contracted. In this meaning, attention is like the 
ability one has to limit the visual field to one of its 
objects or features, say a given tree's mode of 
branching or to the color of the brick in a given 
building, instead of looking at the landscape as a 
whole. In fact, the act of limiting the visual field 
and of looking at one object or aspect thereof is 
supposed to be just one form of attention's activity. 

Attention in the meaning just indicated, i. e., as 
the power whereby the extent of the field of con- 
sciousness is limited, seems to relate primarily and 
chiefly to changes in the mind itself. At still other 
times, 'attention' means, apparently, a special way 



ATTENTION 183 

in which the mind attacks its objects. The expres- 
sions — attention seizes, grasps, catches — suggest 
that it is a kind of prehensile organ which the mind 
employs in securing objects for careful considera- 
tion. It is the activity whereby the mind selects, in 
the face of difficulties, one of a number of possible 
objects for examination. For example, we speak of 
attention seizing upon one feature of a complex 
phenomenon, say the tones of some one instrument 
in an orchestra, while the others are neglected. 

In the two senses last mentioned, attention is conceived 
of as a form of mental activity. In the former — ^ concen- 
trating, focussing. — the activity consists apparently of 
changes within the conscious field itself; in the latter — se- 
lecting, seizing — it is outgoing, it is a way in which the 
mind is supposed to act upon its objects. 

We have just spoken of the variety of meanings 
that attach, in everyday speech, to the word atten- 
tion. A second serious defect of the popular use 
of the term is its extreme vagueness, or generality. 
To say, for instance, that a man's attention wan- 
ders or is diverted from music to money, that it is 
focused now on the one, now on the other, and that 
finally it is quietly slumbering, really tells us noth- 
ing definite about the man's conscious processes. 
It is as if the scientist should tell us that electricity 
wanders, lingers, that it is lured, captured, freed, 
without telling us anything in detail about its wan- 
dering, lingering, and so on. We should say, and 
rightly, that he is giving us metaphors instead of 
information. Again, to say that attention is the 



184 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mind's power of concentrating itself, or of seizing 
objects, is once more to put us off with incomplete 
statements. We should ask, ''concentrating in what 
respect? What precisely is meant, in this case, by 
'seizing'?" 

Third, the popular conceptions of attention orig- 
inate in, or at any rate, are closely bound up with, 
the erroneous notion that the mind is some kind of 
indwelling material entity, substance, force, or 
creature. If one sets out with this conception, it 
is an easy step to the thought that the mind has the 
powers and attributes of other material things; it 
then becomes easy to think of mind as wandering, 
as being captured, as being concentrated, as seizing 
objects and so on, as occasion may require. But 
if we discard this physical conception of mind and 
think of it as the sum total of our conscious pro- 
cesses, then these popular descriptions lose their 
meaning. Our theory of attention must agree with 
our theory of mind. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. IV. 

James: Principles of Psychology, Ch. XI. 

Kulpe: Outlines of Psychology, §§ 72-76. 

Pillsbury: Attention, Chs. I-IV. 

Titchener: A Text Book of Psychology, § § 75-84. 

Wundt: Principles of Physiological Psychology, Vol. I, 

1904, p. 315 ff. 



CHAPTER VIII 
ASSOCIATION 

Associative Connections. — The student who has 
watched the trains of imagery, ideas, thoughts, im- 
pulses, desires which from hour to hour make up 
his stream of consciousness must have observed cer- 
tain uniformities in the order of the appearance of 
the items composing the stream. It must have been 
observed, for example, that, as a rule, the sight of 
the date, '1492' is followed by the thought — 'Co- 
lumbus-discovered-America' ; that the word 'home', 
seen or heard, is usually followed by images and 
thoughts of one's own home ; that A suggests B, that 
'6-f-6' suggests '=12', that one line of a familiar 
verse revives the next.' Uniformity in the order 
in which many conscious processes follow one an- 
other forms a conspicuous feature of our mental 
life. 

It must also have been observed that what some- 
times appears, to superficial inspection, as the be- 
wildering and lawless flight of one consciousness 
after another is really, as closer study shows, a 
process which is subject to laws as rigid as those 
governing the conscious revival of the letters of the 
alphabet; that many of the seeming gaps in the 



1 The popular terms 'revive', 'recall', 'suggest,' and the like 
mean here, and elsewhere in this text, 'is,' 'are,' 'will be,' etc, imme- 
diately followed by'. 

(185) 



186 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

conscious stream can be bridged over by closer 
scrutiny. The following passage from Hobbes is 
frequently quoted to show that we are often able to 
retrace the steps which have lead to seemingly 
abrupt and irrelevant thoughts and ideas : 

"In a discourse of our present civil war [in England] 
what could seem more impertinent than to ask, as one did, 
what was the value of a Roman penny? Yet the coherence 
to me was manifest enough. For the thought of the war 
introduced the thought of delivering up the King [King 
Charles] to his enemies; the thought of that brought in the 
thought of the delivering up of Christ; and that, again, the 
thought of the thirty pence, which was the price of that 
treason. And thence easily followed the malicious question." 

Furthermore, if the student carries his reflections 
a little farther he will notice that some of his per- 
ceptions and thoughts are followed now by one, now 
by another, of their former associates, and that it is 
frequently impossible to predict with certainty 
which one shall arise on a given occasion. Thus the 
sound of the bare word 'gold' may revive any one of 
a multitude of its former mates, e. g., an image or 
thought either of the color of gold, of a gold coin, 
a gold watch, gold dust, gold mine, Golden Rule, 
gold and silver, diamonds, California, the Klondike 
— any one, to repeat, of 'gold's' former mental asso- 
ciates. Again, if the student knows something of 
the life of the first Napoleon, the sight of the Em- 
peror's name is followed with equal ease and fre- 
quency by either 'Waterloo', or 'Wellington', or 'St. 
Helena', or 'Paris'. And so of multitudes of other 



ASSOCIATION 187 

words; they have been linked in past experience to 
a vast number of images and thoughts, any one of 
which may now be revived therewith. 

Finally, the student may have observed that at 
times he is unable to account for the appearance of 
certain of his ideas and images; they bear no dis- 
coverable relation to the other features of his pres- 
ent mental life, they seem to arise spontaneously, to 
come 'out of the everywhere'. 

In brief, the items in the mental stream seem 
sometimes to be bound together by strong and easily 
discernible bonds ; at other times the threads of con- 
nection are fine and lie far beneath the surface; on 
still other occasions it is altogether indeterminable 
vs^hich one of a multitude of possible consciousnesses 
shall sprout out of the one just fading; and, finally, 
many mental processes seem to shoot into the con- 
scious stream out of 'the clear blue'. 

Observations, such as we have just mentioned, 
have given rise to numerous attempts to describe 
the associations, or associative connections (espe- 
cially in respect to their differences), which spring 
up among the components of our mental life; and 
also to describe the conditions under which they 
first occur. We shall presently undertake to sum- 
marize the results of these efforts ; but first two 
remarks, by way of definition, are required. 

(1) An 'association' or 'associative combination', 
as we are now using these terms, is an acquired 
connection, of such a nature, among certain of our 
perceptions, images, and thoughts that when subse- 



188 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

quently one of the members of a given combination 
reappears, its earlier associates also tend to appear. 

The so-called 'laws of association of ideas' assert that 
under certain conditions two or more ideas become related 
in such a way that when one of them reappears the other 
or others also tend to reappear. In modern psychology the 
tendency is to abandon the expression 'laws of association of 
ideas' and to speak instead of the 'conditions' of association, 
meaning thereby the conditions under which associative con- 
nections, such as we have just mentioned, occur. 

(2) It is a little curious, at first thought, that 
the only evidence we can have that an associative 
connection between given conscious processes exists 
is that the appearance of one is actually followed 
by the appearance of the other or others. The 
school boy may insist that he knows who wrote 'The 
Legend of Sleepy Hollow', but until he is able to say 
'Irving' we may still doubt that that associative com- 
bination has ever existed in his mind. Again, the 
only convincing proof that a memory hero can fur- 
nish of his ability to enumerate forthwith all the 
important political, social, economic, educational, 
and literary events of any year of Queen Victoria's 
reign, which we may choose to name, is that he shall 
actually do it. Accordingly, from this point of 
view our task would be (1) to describe typical in- 
stances of associative revival, and (2) to set forth 
the conditions of their occurrence. This phase of 
the subject, however, seems to belong rather in a 
chapter on memory, and we shall defer it until we 
reach that topic. For the present we shall limit 
our study to a description (1) of certain variations 



ASSOCIATION 189 

among' associative combinations, and (2) to a state- 
ment of the conditions favorable to the formation 
of such combinations. 

Variations among Associative Coimbinations. — 
Associative complexes vary in respect to — (1) the 
nature of their components; (2) the number of 
items they comprise; (3) the permanence of the 
grouping of their terms; (4) the intimacy of the 
connections among their components. 

(1) In reference to the first kind of variations 
we may observe, first, that associative complexes 
may consist either of perceptual factors as, e. g., 
when thoughts of the color, coldness, hardness, 
smoothness, weight, 'ring' when struck, of a piece 
of steel are linked together; or of imaginal factors, 
as, e. g., the image of a city, say Athens or Jeru- 
salem, which one gains from others' descriptions; 
or they may consist of both perceptual and imaginal 
elements; for instance, one's knowledge of the sun 
includes the sensory materials — color, warmth, 
location, supplemented by the images of its immense 
size, enormous heat, eruptions, storms, flight 
through space, which the astronomer supplies to us. 

We observe, second, that the components of asso- 
ciational complexes may consist either of elements 
which arise in homogeneous fields of sense-experi- 
ence or of those belonging to different sensory de- 
partments. In the former case, touches are com- 
bined with touches, sights with sights, sounds with 
sounds, and so on. For example, the several visual 
' features of the persons whom the little child sees 



190 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

often, those of the rooms in which he spends his 
early days, the numerous objects of familiar out- 
door scenes, become linked together so that the sight 
of any one tends to revive the others. And of course, 
for grown persons, if they have any power of visual 
imagery, glimpses, part views, fleeting glances are 
continually recalling to the mind's eye fully rounded 
images of acquaintances, friends, familiar land- 
scapes, buildings, vehicles, animals, maps, pictures, 
printed music, mathematical formulas ; bare glimpses 
of even the words we are now reading are sufficient 
to revive them in their entirety. In like manner, 
sounds begin very early in the child's experience to 
fall into groups or clusters so that the appearance 
of one is at once followed by its customary asso- 
ciates. The order of sequence of the sounds of nur- 
sery rhymes and songs is a case in point. In older 
children and grown persons the notes of a melody 
or the words of a poem become linked together in a 
given order so that the sound of a single note or 
word is followed by the imaged sounds of the others. 
The associations just mentioned arise within the 
same sense-department. Far more conspicuous, in 
everyday experience, are those which spring up 
between the different kinds of sensory materials ; 
for example, between visual and auditory, auditory 
and tactual, tactual and visual, visual and gustatory 
perceptions and images. These combinations, too, 
form a prominent feature of the first steps in the 
child's mental development. For instance, a visual 
image of the mother is connected with the sound of 
her voice; the touches of given objects are linked 



ASSOCIATION 191 

with the way they look; the 'look' of an object sug- 
gests that it is rough or smooth, cold or warm, soft 
or hard, heavy or light ; the odor of a nauseous drug 
revives its name, color, taste, together with those 
particular organic sensations which it produces 
when swallowed. Associations also grow up very 
early between given actions on a child's part and 
definite sensory experiences, e. g., a child's shaking 
a bell to hear it ring. 

The kindergarten game in which an object, say an orange, 
is placed in the hands of a blind-folded child with the request 
that he name it and tell as much about it as possible is ob- 
viously a test of the associations between immediately present 
and past sensory experiences. 

(2) An associative complex always comprises at 
least two terms — as the image of a color and the 
thought of its name, the thought of a certain build- 
ing and of certain of its features — though it may 
contain a great many more, the number in each case 
being limited only by the number of terms which, 
in the individual's experience, have occurred in rela- 
tions effective for association. When we say popu- 
larly that one person's knowledge concerning a given 
thing is richer, fuller, more nearly complete, than 
another's, we mean that the associative connections 
in respect to the thing are more numerous in the 
mind of the first person than in that of the second. 

(3) Associative complexes vary greatly in respect 
to the permanence of the ties whereby their compo- 
nents are linked together. Objects and their names, 
words and their meanings, things and their uses, 



192 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

events and their dates, actions and their results, 
are examples of associations which easily acquire 
and retain a high degree of permanence in most 
minds ; while the scientific names of common plants, 
the names of eminent men who were contemporaries 
of, e. g., Julius Caesar, the dramatis personae of a 
Greek tragedy, though easily learned in school days, 
soon thereafter fade away because, ordinarily, the 
conditions for their retention are not operative. 
Other things being equal, the associative combina- 
tions formed in childhood are more durable than 
those formed in later years. 

(4) By variations among complexes in respect to 
the intimacy of the connections of their components 
is meant the variations in the degree of probability 
that the appearance of one of their members will 
involve the appearance of the other or others. Thus, 
for most of us the perception or image of the word 
'Romeo' is more likely to be followed by the word 
or thought 'Juliet' than it is by the thought 'Shakes- 
peare' ; 'wigwam' more frequently revives the word 
'Indian' than it does 'place of shelter'; 'shooting- 
star', the thought or image of 'a streaming light in 
the heavens', than thoughts of other stellar phe- 
nomena, and, in each case, because the associative 
connection between the first and second terms of 
these series is closer than it is between the first and 
third. This sort of variation depends partly upon 
the conditions of associative combination which we 
are now to study. 

A further illustration of the variations among associative 
combinations as regards the intimacy of the connection of 



ASSOCIATION 193 

their components is the fact that if one has learned the 
names of the presidents of the United States in the order of 
their incumbency, and only in that order, and if one is 
called upon to repeat them, it will be easiest to begin with 
Washing-ton and proceed name by name to that of the last 
incumbent, although it is also possible to name them in any 
other one of a multitude of orders, which shows that, in 
addition to the close associative ties between the several 
members of the series and their immediate successors, many 
other bonds of varying intimacy have been formed. In fact, 
every member of the series is, in some degree, linked to 
every other member. 

Conditions Favorable to the Formation of Asso- 
ciations. — The conditions which favor the formation 
of associative connections among conscious proc- 
esses — perceptions, images, and ideas — comprise, 
(1) certain characteristics of the processes them- 
selves; (2) certain relations in which they occur; 
and (3) a group of conditions which are, in a meas- 
ure, external to both the processes and the relations 
immediately involved. We shall consider them in 
the order named. 

First in importance among the characteristics 
which increase the associative possibilities of con- 
scious processes are those of vividness and distinct- 
ness. Thus, if one examines the image formed in 
a momentary glance at a picture, or a land-scape, or 
a building, which one has never before seen, one 
finds in the image those features which in percep- 
tion were life-like and clearly defined, which, in a 
word, 'caught the attention' ; and they are the fea- 
tures which, unless they are supplemented by later 



194 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

observation or undergo other modification, consti- 
tute one's permanent image of the object. Further, 
the difference between two mental processes in re- 
spect to their effectiveness for association with other 
mental processes is related closely to their differ- 
ences in respect to their vividness and distinctness. 
Other things equal, a mental state which has these 
properties will enter into more associative connec- 
tions and more readily than one that is dull and 
blurred. 

A second group of conditions which favor the 
formation of associative combinations among con- 
scious processes consists of certain relations which 
they bear to one another. The most obvious of 
these, and also the most important, is that of tem- 
poral contiguity. Other things equal, mental pro- 
cesses, which occur at the same time, or in imme- 
diate succession, in the same 'conscious present', are 
likely to become linked together. A familiar illus- 
tration of this fact is that the student's images and 
thoughts of buildings, trees, class-mates, library, 
subjects of study, laboratories, books, examinations, 
tend to form an associative system, a constellation 
of what we call school topics. Other familiar ex- 
amples are the connections that arise between the 
thoughts — moon and stars, judge and jury, doctor 
and patient, river and bridge, horse and wagon ; but 
the principle is so simple and so obvious that further 
illustrations, if desired, will readily occur to the stu- 
dent. Associations whose formation depends chiefly 
upon the temporal proximity of their components 



ASSOCIATION 195 

are said to arise according to the law of contiguity/ 
Closely related to the influence of bare contiguity 
in producing associative ties among conscious proc- 
esses is that of frequency of repetition of the proc- 
esses, either simultaneously or in immediate suc- 
cession. The effectiveness of repetition in the for- 
mation of associations is illustrated in the method 
ordinarily employed in learning an alphabet or the 
spelling of words or the multiplication table, the 
conjugation of Latin verbs, lines of poetry, prices 
of goods, the locations of post-ofRces, if one is pre- 
paring for a postal clerk's examination. The more 
frequently two or more processes occur in the same 
conscious present the more likely it is that they will 
form an associative complex. 

It was said, when enumerating the conditions 
which facilitate the formation of associations among 
conscious processes, that one group of conditions 
lies somewhat outside both the processes themselves 
and the relations immediately involved. This group 
includes (a) the 'will' to group one's ideas in regard 
to particular objects, (b) an accompaniment of in- 
tense feeling or emotion, (c) mental alertness, and 
(d) a clear apprehension of the relations in which a 
series of objects stand to one another. Thus (a) 
it is evident that the will, or purpose, to group one's 
ideas in regard to the causes of the Civil War in the 
United States, or the names of the animals that lived 
in a given geologic age, is a potent aid thereto, (b) 



1 For criticism of the view that bare proximity in time is 
sufficient to generate associative combinations, see StouTj The 
arounclioork of Psychology, 1903, pp63, f., 117 f. 



196 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

It is a familiar observation that a series of mental 
experiences occurring in a setting of intense feeling 
or emotion, i. e., that have intense emotional accom- 
paniments, are likely to become welded into a rela- 
tively compact group. Thus, suppose that one is 
aboard a sail-boat that capsizes, and that one's life 
is long in peril; then, ever afterwards, thoughts of 
sail-boats will likely recall items of the one dread- 
ful experience. Further, other things equal, a mental 
state which is rich in emotional concomitants will 
enter into more associative connections and more 
readily than one that is poor in emotional coloring, 
(c) It is equally clear that associative ties among 
conscious processes are more likely to form when 
one is mentally active than when mentally drowsy 
or sluggish, (d) The associability of a series of 
consciousnesses is enhanced by the observation that 
their objects stand in certain relations — ■ e. g., tem- 
poral or causal or qualitative — to one another. 
Thus the thoughts of objects as antecedent and 
subsequent, e. g., 'Christmas' and 'New Year's', or 
as cause and effect, e. g., 'polluted water supply' and 
'epidemic of typhoid', or that are observed to be in 
some respects similar — tones of different musical 
instruments or words used synonymously — tend to 
become associated. Another illustration of the asso- 
ciability of thoughts, whose objects are observed 
to be similar, is that the thoughts of a number of 
printed words, which the student identifies as the 
names of certain English poets, tend to fall into a 
group more readily than if no such similarity of 
meaning is recognised. Again, the words Albany, 



ASSOCIATION 197 

Buffalo, Cleveland, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Kansas 
City, as the naked names of several cities, have but 
slight tendency to become associated. But if one is 
planning a trip by rail from Boston to some point 
in central Kansas, and is told that he will have to 
change coaches at the cities named, then, because of 
their common characteristic — places-to-change-cars 
— the names of these cities will readily fall into a 
group in the traveler's mind. The same principle 
is illustrated in the organization of many of our 
school subjects. For instance, geography, geom- 
etry, physics, American history, as school studies, 
each consists of selected facts, observations, prin- 
ciples, laws, in reference to things which possess 
recognized similarities. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Chs. IV, VIII. 
James: Principles of Psychology, Ch. XIV. 
Stout: The Groundwork of Psychology, Ch. VII. 
Thorndike: Elements of Psychology, Ch. XIII, XVI. 
Titchener: a Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 105-111. 



CHAPTER IX 

MEMORY 

Definition. — A certain portion of our mental life 
consists of knowledge of our past experiences, 
knowledge of having seen certain persons, visited 
certain places, of having been engaged in given 
kinds of work or play or games, of having expe- 
rienced certain emotions, uttered certain opinions or 
judgments, of having decided upon certain courses 
of action. Knowledge of this kind is ordinarily 
called Memory; or, with a slightly different empha- 
sis, we may say — Memory is the knowledge of our 
former experiences as such; the experiences are 
known as ours, and as having occurred in our past. 

In order that we may more easily perceive the 
essential factors of the memory experience, let us 
suppose that there arise in our consciousness images 
and ideas of our having heard on a given occasion 
some noted orator. Let us suppose further that, at 
first, the images or thoughts relate to the speaker 
himself, his name, appearance, manner, possibly the 
sound of his voice, or are merely images of words 
and sentences uttered. Then, if we dwell on the 
scene, we may think of persons seated on the stage 
beside the speaker, the hall, platform, decorations, 
the emotional reactions of the audience, our compan- 
ions, and so on. But the rise in consciousness of 
vivid and exact images of an object or event, even 

(198) 



MEMORY 199 

though they be accompanied by a multitude of re- 
vived associates, would not in itself constitute a 
memory, since obviously the images might all ap- 
pear as features of a purely fictitious creation, as 
in a dream, as figments of imagination, or as pic- 
tures of a possible future event. In order that my 
knowledge of a given event shall be regarded as a 
memory, it must be accompanied by the belief that 
it occurred in the past; the idea of 'pastness' must 
attach to the things of which I am now conscious. 
Now, the thought of 'pastness' arises and is sup- 
ported or corroborated by a simple process of asso- 
ciation. The event remembered occurred in a cer- 
tain year, during a certain presidential campaign, 
when certain political questions were in the fore- 
ground, the year in which Mr. Roosevelt was elected 
president, and so on. 

But the mere thought of an event as belonging to 
a definite point in the past does not alone make of 
it a memory. For obviously the thought of histor- 
ical occurrences, such as Julius Caesar's assassin- 
ation or the battle of Waterloo, may include the 
thought of their pastness, although no one now liv- 
ing speaks of remembering those events. Memory, 
in the strict sense, involves the further belief that 
the remembered experience belongs to my own past. 
Now the belief that a given remembered fact be- 
longs to my own past rests mainly upon two sets 
of experiences. First, I observe that it harmonizes 
with and is corroborated by a number of my other 
verifiable memories, it forms a link in a chain of 
fully authenticated earlier experiences. Thus my 



200 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

memory of having heard on a given occasion a cer- 
tain orator is supported by the memory of a num- 
ber of other occurrences, some of them prior, some 
subsequent thereto, e. g., of the announcement that 
he would speak in a given city at a given time, that 
I was in the city at the time, engaged in certain 
work, that a given person accompanied me to the 
meeting, that certain other persons were present, 
that I went to a given place from the meeting, re- 
viewed the address with my friends who were also 
present, and so on. In the second place, a remem- 
bered fact or event has a feeling or emotional ac- 
companiment which is variously described as 'warmth 
and intimacy' (James) ; as 'a glow of warmth', 'a 
sense of ownership', 'a feeling of ease', ' comfortable 
feeling' (Titchener.) In a word, the sense of 'my- 
ness', which forms an essential feature of every 
memory consciousness, consists of (1) the sense of 
congruity with my other memories which attaches 
to the remembered event, and (2) the feeling or 
emotion of warmth and intimacy, or at-homeness, 
which is awakened by the thought of the event. 

Generally speaking, psychologists are agreed as to the 
characteristic marks of memory and the memory conscious- 
ness. To be sure, the terms employed and the points of 
view differ somewhat from author to author; but there is 
substantial agreement as to the characteristics of the phe- 
nomena. Compare, for example, the descriptions of James 
and Titchener. The former, after pointing out that no mem- 
ory is involved in the mere fact of 'the revival in the mind 
of an image or copy of the original event', and 'that the 
successive editions of a feeling [a consciousness] are so 
many independent events, each snug in its own skin', teaches 



MEMORY 201 

that a memory consciousness involves two further thoughts: 
first, the fact remembered must be expressly referred to the 
past, thought as in the past; second, 'I [the person in whose 
mind the memory occurs] must think that I directly expe- 
rienced its occurrence'. In like manner, Titchener first re- 
minds us that 'no idea is a memory in its own right'; or, in 
the words of a later work, that 'no image or idea is intrin- 
sically a memory-image or a memory-idea' .... Then 
that 'an idea comes to us as remembered only if it comes to 
us as consciously familiar', accompanied, that is, by 'the 
feeling of familiarity'. Now 'the feeling of familiarity', 
which, for Titchener, is the memory label, the distinctive mark 
of a memory, implies James' 'thoughts' that an experience 
belongs to the past and that it belongs to 7ny past. For 
clearly the feeling that an experience is 'familiar' implies the 
feeling, or awareness, that it has been known previously and 
by me. In brief, both James and Titchener teach that one's 
memory of a fact or event includes, besides the knowledge 
of the remembered fact, the consciousness that it belongs to 
one's own past. 

The Conditions of Memory. — In the foregoing 
paragraphs, we have said that memory is the 
knowledge of our past experiences as such. We 
have said also that the characteristic features of 
the memory consciousness are, (1) certain images 
which mean items of our past experience; (2) emo- 
tional and ideational factors which certify that 
these items belong to our own past. We shall turn 
next to the conditions of the appearance of the 
images of our past experiences. 

It is assumed in the preceding paragraph that memories 
are usually mediated by images. To illustrate: in order to 
remember that I once met B. in Washington, images of B.'s 
name, of his appearance and manner at the time, of other 
persons present, of the surroundings, of the words — 'met B. 



202 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in Washington' — some or all of these which mean that par- 
ticular event must appear in consciousness. 

The nature of the mental state which means a given 
remembered event varies from individual to individual, and 
from time to time in the experience of the same individual. 
But, as a rule, a memory involves the presence of either con- 
crete or symbolic imagery which serves as its vehicle. 

Then immediately the question arises — where 
are the vehicles of our memories when they are not 
in consciousness? And this question brings us to 
the central problem of memory so far as it involves 
the retention and the representation of definite por- 
tions of our past experience. 

In the older psychological literature, the treat- 
ment of no topic is more completely cast in figura- 
tive language than that of memory. Thus we read, 
to instance only a few of the more grotesque and 
more mischievous figures, of memory as 'a store- 
house' in which ideas are stored away for safekeep- 
ing, as 'a tablet' upon which impressions are traced, 
of memories 'that are wax to receive and marble 
to retain', of ideas being 'linked together' like the 
links in a chain. Now expressions of this sort may 
be permissible, provided, we remember that we are 
speaking figuratively rather than in the language 
of literal fact. "We may still speak," writes Mc- 
Dougall, "of ideas being stored in the mind and 
being associated together, just as we may still say 
of a man that he carries the image of his beloved 
in his heart, but the two expressions have the same 
sort of validity only. They are picturesque survi- 



MEMORY 203 

vals from the age of ignorance."^ Psychology no 
longer employs such expressions to explain the phe- 
nomena of retention and revival. 

Retention. — How, then, shall we explain the un- 
doubted fact that our experiences do in a sense per- 
sist? How shall we explain the fact of retention? 
The modern explanation of this fact is based upon, 
(1) the law of psycho-neural correlation, namely, 
that every psychosis has its neurosis; or, more spe- 
cifically, that every mental process is accompanied 
by changes in the cerebral cortex; and (2) upon the 
law that a cortical process, once induced, tends, 
under given conditions, to recur, and that whatever 
conscious processes have been previously correlated 
therewith also tend to recur. For example, the per- 
ception of a steamboat is accompanied, according 
to the first law, by given changes in the cortex; 
these changes, according to the second law just 
stated, tend to recur; if they actually do so, then 
we think of, or image more or less perfectly, the 
vessel. The retention of the consciousness of an 
object or event depends, accordingly, upon the re- 
tention of the tendency of the nervous processes 
formerly correlated therewith to recur. If this 
tendency fades out, and if the function has not been 
taken over by some other cortical area, then our 
knowledge of the object likewise dies away. In 
brief, the teaching of modern psychology is that in 
the course of experience our nervous system acquires 
tendencies, or dispositions, to act in certain deter- 
minate ways ; and that conscious processes are cor- 



1 McDougall, Physiological Psychology, 1905, p. 119. 



204 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

related with some of these tendencies and are said 
to be retained thereby. Retention is a fact of the 
physical or physiological order; it is not a mental 
fact or process at all. It is not the mind, but the 
nervous system that retains experiences. 

The Process of Revival. — The retention of an 
earlier experience, we have said, depends upon the 
physiological fact that changes once induced in the 
cerebral cortex persist in the form of nascent ten- 
dencies to recur. Now, the physiological basis of 
revival, or recall, is the same as that of retention, 
with the one important difference that in revival we 
have, instead of the mere tendencies, or dispositions, 
of the aforesaid neural changes to recur, their actual 
recurrence; and their recurrence is due, in most 
cases, to the impulses that spread from cortical 
areas that are associated with those excited by the 
original experience. "If," says Sully, "we suppose 
retention to involve a persistent state of suppressed 
or nascent excitation in the central elements in- 
volved, we may say that revival depends on a suffi- 
cient intensification of this nascent excitation ;" and 
it may be added that, in cases of associative revival, 
this "sufficient intensification" is caused by the irra- 
diation of nervous impulses from other functionally 
connected central elements. 

So much for the physiological conditions of re- 
vival. Let us turn for a moment to the mental side. 
The psychological principles which in the main con- 
trol the revival of images and ideas have been indi- 
cated already in our chapter on Association. It will 
be sufficient at this point to recall the general con- 



MEMORY 205 

elusion stated there, which was, in brief, that when 
one of the members of an associative combination 
reappears, its earlier associates also tend to appear. 
From this it follows that the most general condition 
of the revival of a past mental process is the revival 
first of one of its earlier associates. Now, the 
earlier associate, the cue, which 'suggests', or calls 
up, the particular conscious process, may be either 
an image or idea or perception or sensation. Thus 
the image of the Liberty Bell recalls thoughts of 
when and where we first saw it ; the sight of a great 
boulder reminds one of glacial markings we have 
seen elsewhere ; a twitch of pain in the arm calls to , 
mind the appearance of a certain sufferer from 
rheumatism. Memories of this sort are awakened 
involuntarily, in rambling states, when conscious- 
ness wanders on aimlessly from one process to an- 
other. A little later, we shall study voluntary, pur- 
posive, memory, or recollection, and we shall then 
see that the mechanism of the revival itself is essen- 
tially the same as in passive, involuntary recall. 

The Sequence of Imaginal and Ideational Processes. 
— One palpable conclusion of the foregoing discus- 
sion of the process of revival is that the most gen- 
eral condition of the revival of one image or idea 
by another is that they shall have previously oc- 
curred together, shall have been, on some former 
occasion, factors in the same 'conscious present'. 
This general condition depends in turn, as we saw, 
upon the law of neural habit, the law, namely, that 
when two or more cortical activities occur simul- 
taneously or in immediate succession the recurrence 



206 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of one of them tends to revive the others. It is, 
moreover, generally agreed that the sequence of our 
imaginal and ideational processes is controlled by 
the law of habit, that in a train of images and ideas 
the fading portions are usually followed by some 
one of their former associates. 

But since, in the course of experience, an image 
or an idea may have had numerous associates, the 
question arises which one of all these shall appear 
in its wake on a given occasion. The word 'Shakes- 
peare," for example, very likely has in the reader's 
mind a multitude of associates — names of the poet's 
plays and the characters thereof, the names of 
famous Shakespearean actors, of Sfhakespearean 
scholars, of the poet's contemporaries, images of the 
Shakespeare house at Stratford, or of Shakespeare 
portraits, thoughts of the Shakespeare-Bacon con- 
troversy, and so on and on. At one time, the per- 
ception or thought of the name ''Shakespeare" is 
followed by one of these; at another time by some 
other, and the question arises, what determines 
which one of all these possible successors shall 
actually appear in a given instance. 

Now it is clear that appeal to the law of habit 
as an explanation of the order of the appearance of 
our images and ideas carries us only part way 
toward an answer. This law affirms that some one 
of the earlier sequences tends to be repeated, but 
it does not tell us which one. Otherwise expressed, 
the train of associative revival may be said to be 
run by the law of habit, but, so far as this law is 
concerned, it remains wholly indeterminate in what 



MEMORY 207 

direction, on what track, it shall run. To take the 
instance already cited : we have to look beyond the 
general law of habit in order to see why the word 
'Shakespeare' is followed at one time by — 'The 
Tempest' ; at another, by 'Stratford' ; at still another, 
by 'Portia', and so on. We have to look to another 
set of influences, sometimes called the secondary 
laws of association, for light on this latter question, 
and it is next in order to state and illustrate some 
of these laws.^ 

(1) Frequency. The law of frequency is that 
other things equal, an image or idea which has been 
frequently associated with another tends, on its 
recurrence, to revive the other. For example, the 
thought, 'text-book of geometry' will likely recall the* 
one used in studying that subject; or, the words 
'Emancipation Proclamation' suggest the name of 
Lincoln, who issued it. 

(2) Recency. If you have recently associated in 
thought two or more objects, then the recurrence 
of the thought of one of the objects is likely to re- 
vive the thought of the other or others. Thus the 
word 'Tennyson' recalls a verse recently quoted in 
our hearing and ascribed to that poet; 'Prima 
donna', the name of the one who recently visited our 
city. 

(3) Mood. One's temporary emotional state or 
one's mood influences the trend of one's images and 
ideas. It is well known that when one is depressed 



1 It should be noted that some of the general conditions of the 
formation of associative connections, e. g., contiguity and fre- 
quency of repetition, are also conditions of associative revival. 



208 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in spirits the air is full of birds of ill-omen, and 
that when one's mood is joyous the thoughts and 
images that stream into consciousness are likewise 
cheerful and happy. If, for instance, our dominant 
mood is a happy one, the thought of 'summer' re- 
vives thoughts of bright days, of flowers, of bab- 
bling, brooks, of singing birds; but if it is gloomy, 
then one can think only of oppressive heat, sun- 
strokes, clouds of dust, sleepless nights, and the like. 
(4) Context. Context is a potent factor in de- 
termining the direction which a conscious train 
shall take at a given moment. To illustrate, let us 
take the following well-known passage from James : 

"Why is it," he asks, ''when we recite from memory one 
of these lines : 

'"I the heir of all the ages in the foremost files of time," 
and — 

'For I doubt not through the ages one increasing purpose 
runs', 
and get as far as 'the ages', that portion of the other line 
which follows, and, so to speak, sprouts out of 'the ages', 
does not also sprout out of our memory, and confuse the 
sense of our words? 'Simply because,' he answers, 'the word 
that follows 'the ages' has its brain-process awakened not 
simply by the brain-process of 'the ages' alone, but by it 
plus the brain-processes of all the words preceding 'the 

ages' When the processes of, 'I, the heir of all 

the ages', simultaneously vibrate in the brain .... 'in' 
and not 'one' or any other word will be the next to awaken, 
for its brain-process has previously vibrated in unison not 
only with that of 'ages', but with that of all those other 
words whose activity is dying away.''^ 

A more familiar, even if more prosaic, illustra- 
tion of the influence of context is found in the dif- 



"i- Principles of Psychology, vol. I, p. 567 f. 



MEMORY ' 209 

ferent meanings, the varying associations, which 
many words have, owing to change in contexts. 
Thus, if one is engaged with astronomical matters, 
the word 'star' means a heavenly body, it reminds 
us possibly of other like bodies, their paths, dis- 
tances, relations to one another, and so on. But if 
the general topic of our discourse is theatres or ball- 
games or decorations, the meaning and the revived 
associates of 'star' will likely be very different. 

(5) Dominant interest or purpose. The inter- 
est or purpose of the moment is perhaps the most 
potent factor in determining which of several pos- 
sible ideas each of the successive portions of a con- 
scious train shall awaken. Thus, if one is drawing 
up a list of American poets, the thought of Long- 
fellow is more likely to be followed by thoughts of 
Whittier, Lowell and Poe, than by thoughts of Long- 
fellow's poems, or of incidents of his life, or even of 
other American writers who are known only as 
novelists. Again, if one's dominant interest, for the 
time being, is in metals, the word 'gold' is more 
likely to revive thoughts of 'iron', 'zinc', 'copper',, 
than it is ideas of gold coins, or gold watches, or 
jewelry. 

Primacy. It is held by some writers that 'first associa- 
tions' are more 'intimate' (in the sense described on p. 192) 
than later ones. It is said, for instance, that the words 
'ocean voyage' are more likely to be followed by thoughts 
of one's first voyage than by those of later ones; that 
thoughts of the events of one's first visit to a strange city 
are more likely to follow the thought of the name of the city 
than are thoughts of later visits. In the present writer's 
view, however, it is doubtful if 'primacy' independently of 



210 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

other factors, such as purpose, mood, frequency, ever deter- 
mines the direction of associative revival; that is, unless 
first associations occur in an intense emotional setting, or 
are frequently repeated or are otherwise fixed, they are no 
more likely to recur than lates ones. 

The reader may have remarked, in the preceding para- 
graphs, the frequent occurrence of the statement, 'other 
things equal', so and so will or is likely to occur. Probably 
it would have been better to have said, 'in the absence of 
other influences or factors', the one or ones named will deter- 
mine the direction of associative revival. Thus, to take a 
case already cited, the thought of Longfellow will be followed 
by thoughts of — say Lowell or Bryant — if the direction of 
revival is controlled wholly by our interest in naming Amer- 
ican poets. But if we have been recently reading an account 
of Longfellow's memorable visit with Tennyson, then, owing 
to the influence of recency, our thought will be less likely 
to run from 'Longfellow' to the names of other American 
poets and more inclined to run toward the Tennyson visit; 
or if we have at some time visited 'The Longfellow House' 
in Cambridge, and if our visit had a marked emotional color- 
ing, then, owing to the latter, our interest in naming poets 
gives way to thoughts of Longfellow's Cambridge home. 

Spontaneous Revival. — W© have just now enumer- 
ated some of the influences which determine the 
sequence of our imaginal and ideational processes. 
We have seen that contiguity, frequency, recency, 
and the rest are all grounds for the succession of 
particular mental states, say X or Y, in the wake of 
other particular mental states, A or B, The se- 
quence is not lawless, wholly unpredictable. And 
yet, "it must be confessed', says James, 'that an im- 
mense number of terms in the linked chain of our 
representations fall outside of all assignable rule." 
Occasionally the sequence of mental phenomena 
seems to fly squarely in the face of what apparently 



MEMORY 211 

are pro tempore the most potent influences ; and not 
infrequently ideas and images emerge which are 
wholly unrelated to the preceding conscious waves 
and to the interests of the moment. These sudden 
and inexplicable revivals are supposed to be due to 
'accidental alterations' in the cortical centers, 'acci- 
dental' in the sense that their causes are hidden to 
human knowledge. Among the influences that at 
times interrupt the normal functioning of the ner- 
vous system and, consequently, the operation of the 
usual laws of mental behavior, Thorndike enumer- 
ates 'fatigue, drugs, sickness, the decay of old age, 
shock, the chance variations of blood-pressure, and 
metabolism'.^ 

Revival through Similarity. — The perception or 
the thought of one of two objects which have one or 
more similar features is frequently followed by the 
thought of the other, even though they are unlike 
in other respects, and even though thoughts of the 
objects have never before occurred together. For 
example, it is a frequent occurrence that some fea- 
ture or features of a strange face 'reminds' one of a 
face which is well known, or that some portion of 
a strange bit of landscape calls to mind a familiar 
one. The principle has a wide range of application. 
Similarity of any kind, real or imagined, between 
any two objects may form the link whereby one 
passes in thought from the one to the other. Thus, 
similarity in either color, taste, form, size, softness, 
hardness, ease, difficulty, position, beauty, ugliness, 
goodness, badness, fairness, unfairness, — in brief, 



'^The Elements of Psychology^ 1905, p. 222. 



212 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

any property or quality which can be attributed to 
or affirmed of any two objects may serve as the men- 
tal bridge from one to the other. 

In the earlier text-books of psychology the usual 
way of accounting for transitions of this kind was 
to say that they fall under the law of association by 
similarity, the law that the consciousness of a given 
thing tends to revive images and ideas of things 
similar thereto. But now most authors explain 
all cases of associative revival by reference to the 
law of habit operating under the special conditions 
and limitations described in the foregoing para- 
graphs. And it is easy to see that what occurs in 
every case of so-called association by similarity is 
that some feature or features of the present object 
— whether perceived, imaged, or thought of — at- 
tains a certain prominence in consciousness, be- 
comes 'the most interesting portion', to use James' 
phrase, and, breaking away from its immediate 
associates, gathers to itself certain of its former 
associates which combine therewith to form the new 
object of thought. To illustrate: suppose that while 
traveling in a strange region I come upon a tow- 
ered church which immediately reminds me of a 
similar one I have known elsewhere. Now the ex- 
planation proposed by the earlier text-books is that 
the present edifice reminds me of the one known 
previously because of the similarity of the two. Not 
so. The two structures may be, in fact, similar ; but 
their similarity is not, in itself, sufficient ground 
for the appearance of thoughts of the one whilst I 
am looking at or thinking of the other. The true 



MEMORY 



213 




explanation of such cases is that the thought of 
some feature of the present object revives certain 
of its earlier associates, which, in our illustration, 
are the tower, and other architectural features, the 
particular location, surroundings, and so on, of a 
formerly known church building. 

The accompanying figure 
(33) from Judd, together 
with his description, make 
plain the case of association 
through similarity. He writes, 
"The circle A represents a 
single feature of the [build- 
ing] nov\^ seen; b, b, b, are 
the other features. In a past 
experience, A has been part 
of a system of features of 
which c, c, c, were the others. 
If A becomes the subject of 
special attention, it can 're- 
vive the elements, c, c, c, and 
thus detach itself from b, b, b, 
the features of the present 
complex in which it stands."^ 
Which of the 'interesting por- 
tion's' associates (i. e., which 
of A's earlier associates, shall, 
in a given case, be revived 
depends upon the influences already enumerated, 
namely, frequency, recency, context, dominant pur- 
pose, and so forth. 



Fig-. 33. "The full-drawn 
circles represent the 
elements of the pres- 
ent experience. Of 
these elements A 
attaches itself also 
to the system of ele- 
ments represented by 
the dotted line cir- 
cles. A, when taken 
with the circles b, b, 
b, constitutes the 
present experience ; 
A, when taken with 
the circles c, c, c, 
constitutes the re- 
called experience. A 
is obviously the cen- 
ter of relations be- 
tween the two sys- 
tems." (Judd). 



JUDD^ Psychology, 1907, 235. 



214 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

It is true that in cases of revival through similarity, the 
reviving and the revived object are in some respect similar; 
but the revival does not occur because of our having first 
noted the similarity of the two objects. In fact, the simi- 
larity is observed, if at all, after the revival occurs, not be- 
fore: so it cannot be maintained that the thought thereof 
causes us to think of the one object after thinking of the 
other. Psychologically, the fact of similarity has nothing 
whatever to do with the fact of revival. This latter depends 
wholly upon habit, as previously defined, and upon the vary- 
ing influences of context, recency, vividness, and the other 
factors previously enumerated. 

Active and Passive Recall Distinguished. — In rev- 
ery, in day-dreaming, or when musing, the process 
of revival proceeds spontaneously, and the compo- 
nents of the conscious stream rise and disappear as 
if by chance. Strikingly different from this aimless 
flight of one conscious process after another is that 
restoration of images and ideas which is guided and 
controlled by a definite purpose. This latter process 
is ordinarily called voluntary, or active, recall, or 
perhaps better still — recollection. We have now to 
inquire in what respects it differs from passive, or 
involuntary, recall, or mere remembrance. We 
have to ask, that is, in what ways the presence of a 
definite purpose modifies the course of revival. 

The mode in which a definitely conceived end 
operates in active revival is very clearly seen in 
one's effort to recall a forgotten name. Suppose, to 
fix our thoughts, that the purpose is to recall the 
name of a certain German philosopher. We know 
the name perfectly, but at the moment it refuses to 
come. How do we proceed to recall it? The answer 
is very simple. We dwell upon the revived images, 



MEMORY 215 

thoughts, sensations, feelings, which we know are 
related to the forgotten name and neglect those 
which are not; and presently through an accumu- 
lation of resuscitative tendencies, or through the 
agency of some one which at the moment is espe- 
cially effective for the revival of this particular 
name, our quest is successfully concluded. Thus, 
the philosopher whose name we are seeking, lec- 
tured at Heidelberg ; his manner was oratorical ; my 
friend H. carried a letter of introduction to him 
when he went to Germany; in appearance he re- 
sembled slightly a well-known American philoso- 
pher ; one of his books was translated into English ; 
an appreciation of his life and works recently ap- 
peared in a certain philosophical journal; I think 
his name begins with F; but it isn't Fichte; Fichte 
belongs to an earlier generation; the sound of 'r' 
occurs in the name; but it is not Franke, or Fried- 
mann or Fritsch ; it is Fischer — Kuno Fischer — 
Certainly ! In all cases of voluntary recall we pro- 
ceed in the same way. If it is the date of a given 
historical event which we are trying to recover, we 
fix its place by recalling its known associates, the 
names of persons living at the time, the dates of 
other historical events known to be related to the 
one whose date we are now seeking; or if it is a 
quotation, which we have heard a given speaker 
use with great effectiveness, we begin by thinking 
of the speaker, the occasion, the part of the address 
in which it occurred, its general purport, its length, 
whether prose or verse, the meter, the general 'feel' 
of the words — everything, in short, which is known 



216 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to be in any way connected with the forgotten 
words. To repeat : in searching for forgotten items 
— forgotten names, dates, places, quotations — we 
run back and forth in thought over everything 
which we know to be related thereto. When the 
object of our search does finally burst forth it is 
due primarily to the resuscitative energy of these 
revived associates. 

Now if we take the pains to run over and to dwell 
upon all the facts and circumstances which are in 
any way related to the lost name, (or date or quo- 
tation) it is likely to appear during the quest. Some- 
times, however, the immediate outcome is failure. 
Now if, at some later time, the sought-for item 
leisurely rolls into consciousness, it is because, as we 
may suppose, the cortical processes, initiated during 
the active seeking, continued until they spread to 
those centers which are correlated with the object 
of our original search. In still other instances, our 
failure is permanent, and the explanation is again 
in terms of nervous process ; that is, the failure on 
the mental side is due to the failure of the nervous 
processes which have been excited during the active 
search to shoot into and rouse the neural correlates 
of the forgotten fact. 

Memory and Imagery. — We saw in our section on 
'Individual Differences in Mental Imagery' (p. 146 
ff ) that there is an enormous variation in the wealth 
and character of the imagery of different individ- 
uals, that the remembering, thinking, planning of 
some persons consist of rich and varied imagery 
and that the imagery of others is poor, schematic, 



MEMORY 217 

fleeting. It is unnecessary to repeat in this connec- 
tion what was said there; but it is in place to em- 
phasize the fact of variation as regards the part 
which imagery plays in the memory consciousness. 
Thus one person affirms that all his memories con- 
sist of images of the things remembered. His mem- 
ory of a certain ball game, or of Irving's Hamlet, 
of a holiday parade, of the events of a thrilling 
story, consists wholly of images of the original expe- 
rience. He would affirm — 'no images means, for 
me, no memory'. Another person will assure us 
that his memories seldom if ever consist of images 
of the remembered experiences ; nevertheless, he 
regards them as perfectly trustworthy. He remem- 
bers that on a given occasion he saw Mr. Irving and 
Miss Terry in Faust, that on another he heard 
Melba, and that on still another he visited the mu- 
seum at X. He may be able to give a minute de- 
scription of the acting, the singing, and the museum ; 
but he is unable to revive a single image of any of 
them. His recollection of these experiences consists 
wholly of verbal descriptions of them. His mem- 
ory belongs to the verbal, or symbolic, type as de- 
scribed above. So, if it be asked, does the memory 
of a former experience always involve more or less 
of imagery of the experience? we must answer — 
for some persons, Yes ; for others. No. Of course, 
between these extremes lie numberless gradations 
in reference to the place which images hold in indi- 
viduals' memories of concrete experiences. 

We have just referred to the vast differences 
among individuals in respect to the prominence of 



218 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

imagery in their memory experiences. A like wide 
range of variation is frequently observable in the 
place M^hich images hold in a given individual's 
memories. Thus, a person whose memories ordi- 
narily are replete with imagery often remarks that 
a particular one is devoid of imagery of any sort; 
or if present at all, it is fleeting and shadowy and 
consists merely of faint images of words seen or 
heard. To illustrate: if the reader, even though he 
be of the imaginal type, will run over some of his 
experiences of a decade ago — villages visited, per- 
sons seen, festal occasions, work performed — he will 
not unlikely find that his memory of some of them, 
while perfectly definite, is extremely colorless, and 
consists almost entirely of verbal signs. Thus the 
writer, who is of the imaginal type, recalls perfectly 
well that a few years ago he spent an hour or so in 
a certain village waiting for a train ; but no images 
of the town arise. Its name awakens the bare 
thought — waited - there - for - train to N., and, at 
times, a feeble echo of the restlessness or impatience 
of the original experience, a kind of waiting-for-a- 
train uneasiness. 

Individual Differences in Memory, — The term 
'memory' is sometimes used popularly to refer either 
to the processes involved in acquiring knowledge or 
to the function whereby it is retained or to the 
power to recall it. Thus, there are in current use 
many such expressions as — receptive memory, re- 
tentive memory, ready memory, which, while they 
are descended from an obsolete psychology and so 
connote doctrines as to the nature of the mind which 



MEMORY 219 

are no longer held, still do point to well attested 
facts in reference to individual differences in mental 
constitution. It may be remarked, in passing, that 
the language ordinarily employed to describe these 
differences is necessarily, in the present state of our 
knowledge, figurative to the last degree. 

In the first place, minds differ enormously in 
respect to their receptiveness. At the one extreme 
are the plastic, impressionable minds which acquire 
knowledge with great ease and rapidity ; at the other 
extreme are the stubborn, impervious, indurate 
minds. Betv/een these extremes there are naturally 
many gradations of receptiveness. Minds differ 
also as regards their retentiveness. They are either 
strong or weak, tenacious or feeble. "Some minds," 
as James observes, "are like wax under a seal — no 
impression, however disconnected with others, is 
wiped out. Others, like a jelly, vibrate to every 
touch, but under usual conditions, retain no per- 
manent mark." Between these extremes, we find 
numerous grades of retentiveness. In the third 
place, there are clearly marked individual variations 
in the readiness and accuracy with which expe- 
riences are recalled. One mind is quick, ready, 
definite; another is slow and indefinite. 

An individual variation of the memory function, 
closely related to the one last mentioned, is in 
respect to what Stout calls its 'serviceableness', 
"the readiness with which what is relevant to the 
prevailing interest of the moment is reproduced." 

" 'A memory may be extremely extensive', Stout continues, 
'without being in this sense serviceable. Dominie Sampson's 



220 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mind, as described by Scott, was like 'the magazine of a 
pawnbroker, stowed with goods of every description, but so 
cumbrously piled together, and in such total disorganization, 
that the owner can never lay his hands on any one article 
at the moment he has occasion for it.' '" 

The obvious remedy (or preventive) for the con- 
fusion in the pawnshop and in the Dominie's mind 
alike is found in the organization, the classification 
of the contents thereof. 

There are also certain well-known variations 
among these three functions themselves. The pop- 
ular (and, in part, misleading) way of denoting 
them is to say that some persons learn easily, but 
soon forget; that others learn slowly, but retain 
long what is once learned; that still others possess 
retentive memories, but are exasperatingly slow and 
uncertain in recalling what they know. It should be 
remembered, of course, that these everyday expres- 
sions are not statements of laws as to the relations 
which obtain betvv^een one aspect of the memory 
function and another; they merely denote some of 
their frequently observed variations. 

Again, common observation teaches that our 
memories are highly specialized functions, that a 
person may have a good memory for one class of 
objects, and poor for others. We have a striking 
instance of the specialization of the memory func- 
tion in the case of the artist who could paint a por- 
trait of a face seen but once, but could not learn the 
multiplication table ; also in that of the chess player 
who played blindfolded several games of chess at 



lA Manual of Psychology, 1899, p. 437. 



MEMORY 221 

the same time, but was unable to memorize a para- 
graph of prose; and again in the case of the musi- 
cian who could reproduce difficult musical selections 
after hearing them once, but was unable to repeat 
the months of the year in their order. All these, to 
repeat, are illustrations of the fact that 'the mem- 
ory', really consists of a multitude of specialized 
functions, and that in a given individual these may 
be highly developed in relative independence of one 
another, that memory for one class of objects or 
experiences may be good while for others it is poor, 
that there is no warrant for thinking that good mem- 
ory for some things necessarily means good memory 
for all things. 

Certain phenomena of mental disease, due to par- 
ticular brain disorders, furnish further ground for 
thinking that different 'memories' exist in relative 
independence of one another. Thus it is found that 
in certain morbid mental states, memory for one 
class of facts is lost while for others it remains in- 
tact. Ribot quotes the case of a person who 'having 
received a blow on the head, lost all his knowledge 
of Greek, although his memory was otherwise un- 
impaired'; also that of a child who, after a period 
of unconsciousness due to a severe blow on the head, 
was found to have forgotten all that he had learned 
of music. Nothing else was lost. Other patients 
suffering from fatigue or brain injury often forget 
all proper names, even their own, yet retain other 
faculties intact. In other cases, they remember the 
use of common articles, as of food or furniture, but 
have forgotten all names. In still others, the pa- 



222 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

tients understand spoken words, but written words 
mean nothing. 

Cramming. — Among students and teachers con- 
siderable interest attaches to the question as to the 
value of cramming as a mode of study, meaning by 
'cramming', "that way of preparing for examina- 
tions by committing 'points' to memory during a 
few hours or days of intense application immediately 
preceding the final ordeal, little or no work having 
been performed during the previous course of the 
term." (James). Perhaps a few students would be 
pleased to find sound arguments in support of this 
method of meeting college requirements, since it fits 
in so well with their own inclinations and with 
their own ideals of student life; that is, they would 
like to find ground for believing that it is just as 
profitable from the educational standpoint to spend 
the days and weeks of the term on matters far re- 
moved from class-room work, and then by heroic 
effort, during the examination period, make grades 
which will warrant their instructors in giving them 
term credit. Again, for a certain type of student 
there is something about the idea of cramming up 
for examinations and passing them that appeals to 
his love of display and to his natural desire to show 
his power, as he supposes, to do in a short time what 
requires weeks or months of diligent application on 
the part of ordinary mortals. He has a lofty con- 
tempt for the student who plods along day by day 
and who is unable to perform great feats on short 
notice. 



MEMORY 223 

But our smiles at the vanities of the imaginary 
student give way to soberness when such competent 
thinkers and scholars as Jevons, Verdon, Sully and 
others remind us that cramming has a good as well 
as a bad side. Jevons, for example, points to what 
he describes as, "a popular but wholly erroneous 
notion that what boys learn at school and college 
should be useful knowledge indelibly impressed upon 
the mind, so as to stay there all their lives." And 
Sully claims that "cramming has a value of its own" 
because what is thus learned is easily forgotten. 
And this. Sully maintains, "is a distinct advantage 
in many of the practical affairs of life; otherwise, 
the mind would be encumbered and our brain-powers 
far more narrov/ly limited than they now are. . . 
. . . Wherever the matter acquired is merely of 
temporary interest, the power of casting it off is a 
clear advantage." ^ 

Now, it can not be doubted that, in practical af- 
fairs, men are occasionally required to memorize by 
intense application a mass of data that have no per- 
manent value; they are useful merely for the occa- 
sion and had better be forgotten as soon as that is 
past. Carpenter illustrates this fact from the prac- 
tice of the law. An attorney is sometimes required, 
he says, to work up by intense application the mat- 
ters of fact involved in a suit which has only tem- 
porary interest. In such cases, it is clearly an ad- 
vantage to be able to forget speedily the details of 
the matter, thus leaving the mind free for other 
problems and interests. 



^ The Human Mind, vol. I, p. 350 f, 



224 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

But this is not the whole story. The following 
sentences from James place the matter in a wholly 
different light. He writes : — 

"In mental terms, the more other facts a fact is asso- 
ciated with in the mind the better possession of it our mem- 
ory retains. Each of its associations becomes a hook to 
which it hangs, a means to fish it up by when sunk beneath 
the surface. Together, they form a network of attachments 
by which it is woven into the entire tissue of our thought. 
The secret of a good memory is thus the secret of forming 
multiple and diverse associations with every fact we care to 

retain But things learned in a few hours, on 

one occasion, for one purpose, cannot possibly have formed 
many associations with other things in the mind. Their 
brain-processes are led into by few paths, and are relatively 
little liable to be awakened again. Speedy oblivion is the 
almost inevitable fate of all that is committed to memory in 
this simple way'" The retention of facts depends, in other 
words, upon their having formed 'multiple and diverse asso- 
ciations' with other facts; and since this, ordinarily, requires 
time, the ineffectiveness of cramming is evident if our pur- 
pose is to retain what we learn. 

A highly instructive case is cited by Ribot from 
Abercrombie's Intellectual Powers of an actor who, 
in consequence of the sudden illness of another per- 
former, was called upon to take the latter's 'part' : — 

"He acquired it in a very short time, and went through 
with it with perfect accuracy, but immediately after the 
performance forgot every word of it. Characters which he 
has acquired in a more deliberate manner he never forgets, 
but can perform them at any time without a moment's 
preparation; but as regards the character now mentioned 
there was the further and very singular fact that although 
he has repeatedly performed it since that time, he has been 



^Principles of PsycJiology, vol. I, p. 662 f. 



MEMORY 225 

obliged each time to prepare it anew, and has never acquired 
in regard to it that facility which is familiar to him in other 
instances." 

It would be difficult to find a more impressive 
illustration of the futility of cramming as a mode of 
study, provided, permanence of attainment is the 
chief purpose. It illustrates, in the first place, the 
proverb, 'quickly won, quickly lost' ; and, secondly, 
it suggests the curious fact, if fact it be, that mem- 
orizing a thing by the method of intense application 
entails a hindrance to its ever becoming a perma- 
nent possession, even though more rational methods 
be employed in relearning it. 

Were this the proper place, it would be worth 
while to follow out the educational implications of 
the two views of cramming just outlined. We might 
inquire, for example, to what extent the theory of 
formal discipline underlies the teachings of those 
who defend it; also what, if any, ground can be 
found for the view that in our school studies method 
is everything and that matter is relatively unimpor- 
tant. But these inquiries would take us too far 
afield. So far as the educational issues are con- 
cerned, they may be summed up in Titchener's 
words : 'Cramming is bad, if you want to remember, 
good, if you want to forget, what you have learned'.^ 

Prodigious Memories. — This topic can hardly be accounted 
complete until it includes one or two specimens of the olden 
time stories of prodigious memories. The earlier gener- 
ations of teachers of 'Mental Philosophy' probably employed 
them as models of scholarly attainment for their more ambi- 



^A Primer of Psycliology, 1907, p. 197. 
15 



226 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

tious pupils; and also, one may fancy, to humble the pride 
of the haughty collegians of their day. 

It is interesting to the student of the history of education 
to observe that most of the stories of marvelous memories, 
as told in the older books on psychology, are accounts of 
prodigious feats of remembering words. To this class be- 
longs the oft quoted passage from Seneca's Declamations, 
wherein he says that at one time he was able to repeat two 
thousand names read to him in the order in which they 
had been spoken; and that on one occasion, when at his 
studies, he repeated in reverse order two hundred discon- 
nected verses which had been recited by other pupils at the 
school. Likewise, the philosopher Leibnitz's ability to repeat 
the whole of the Aeneid was due chiefly to his preternatural 
word memory. More remarkable still is the account given 
first by Muretus and quoted here from Hamilton's Lectures 
on Metaphysics^ of the word memory possessed by a certain 
Corsican youth of the sixteenth century, Guilio Guidi by 
name — Guidi della gran memoria — the people called him. 
Guidi, as the story runs, at Muretus' request gave on a cer- 
tain occasion a specimen of his power ''before a considerable 
party of distinguished auditors." The party assembled, 
Muretus began to dictate words, Latin, Greek, barbarous, 
significant and non-significant, disjointed and connected until 
he wearied himself, the young man who wrote them down and 
the audience who were present. "All save the Corsican 
were marvelously tired," says Muretus. Then, continues the 
account, "vidi facinus mirificissimum, the youth repeated the 
whole list of words, in the same order in which they had 
ben delivered, without the slightest hesitation; then com- 
mencing from the last, he repeated them backwards till he 
came to the first; then again so that he spoke the first, the 
third, the fifth and so on in any order that was asked." 
Hamilton admits that Muretus' "trustworthiness was not 
quite as transcendent as his genius;" but concerning this par- 
ticular record, he found evidence which convinced him of the 
truth of the account. We are not concerned here partic- 



^ Lectures on Metaphysics, Lecture XXX. 



MEMORY 227 

ularly about the absolute truthfulness of the story; we may, 
however, without being over credulous, believe that there 
was a sixteenth century Corsican youth greatly famed for 
his preternatural word memory; we are chiefly interested in 
the story as a record of the prodigious capacity for a mem- 
ory feat of a special kind. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. IX. 

James: Principles of Psychology, Vol. 1, Chs. XIV, XVI. 

Judd: Psychology, Ch. IX. 

Pillsbury: The Essentials of Psychology, Chs. VI, VIII. 

Stout: A Manual of Psychology, Book IV, Chs. II, III. 

Titchener: a Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 112-118. 



CHAPTER X 

IMAGINATION 

Definition. — It will be well at the outset to clear 
our minds of two widespread misconceptions re- 
garding the nature of the Imagination. One of 
these is that imagination is a special compartment 
of the mind in which imagining occurs. According 
to the other, the imagination is a kind of instrument 
which the mind uses in imagining in much the same 
way that a weaver uses a loom in weaving rugs, or 
a sculptor his mallet and chisel in cutting marble. 
Now, we have seen elsewhere, that psychologists no 
longer speak of the mind as composed of compart- 
ments, nor do they think of it as some sort of reign- 
ing power within us which works with certain im- 
plements called memory, imagination, judgment, 
and the like. Instead of describing imagination in 
this figurative way, let us define it broadly as that 
kind of centrally initiated mental activity whereby 
our images of objects, in respect to their nature and 
their relations, undergo changes. The nature of 
this kind of mental activity can be made clearer by 
considering certain of its typical forms. 

Types of Imaginative Activity. — There is a wide- 
spread notion that imaginative activity is an alto- 
gether orderless process. It is evident on reflection, 
however, that it ordinarily follows certain types, or 
patterns, some of which we shall now describe. 

(228, 



IMAGINATION 229 

Perhaps the most common class of imaginative 
constructions is that in which objects as wholes, or 
some parts or qualities or attributes thereof, are 
isolated, then transferred to and combined with 
other objects or attributes or situations. The proc- 
ess is sometimes described as one of separation and 
combination. Castles in the air, images of one's 
self occupying a place of power and authority, the 
Chimera, the centaur and the Harpies of Greek 
mythology, a mermaid, the winged fairies and the 
fairly-land, are the stock examples of this kind of 
imaginative constructions. 

A special form of the type of imaginative activity 
just mentioned consists in comparing ideal to phys- 
ical objects, particularly in ascribing to ideal objects 
patterns or orders of arrangement or occurrence, 
observed in physical objects, or in the symbolic rep- 
resentation of the former. Prosaic examples are — 
likening mental development to the growth of a 
plant, or the structure of human society to that of 
a complex animal organism. Many of the creations 
of poetic fancy are clearly due to this type of imagi- 
native procedure. For example, 'Justice' is pictured 
as blindfolded and bearing a sword and balanced 
scales ; a human figure holding aloft a lighted torch 
is 'Liberty Enlightening the World' ; a presidential 
candidate is 'a plumed knight throwing his shining 
lance full and fair, etc' ; the soul of Milton was 'like 
a star and dwelt apart'. 

The form of imaginative activity just described 
shades gradually into the purely sesthetic imagina- 
tion and the creative genius of the artist. The alle- 



230 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

gories, parables, fables, metaphors, personifications 
which abound in the literatures of all peoples, the 
works of sculptors and painters which symbolize 
human qualities, fancies, ideals, aspirations and 
achievements, the creations of the masters in the 
world of music, are familiar illustrations of this 
form of imaginative construction. 

In another kind of imaginative activity the prob- 
lem is to complete a whole, some of its parts being 
given. Striking instances of this type are seen in 
the artist's restoration of the lost fragments of a 
Grecian statue, in the paleographer's reproduction 
of the obliterated portions of an ancient inscription, 
in the archseologist's conjectures as to the use of im- 
plements found in the ruins of the dwelling places 
of prehistoric man, and in the paleontologist's recon- 
struction of an extinct animal form from a few frag- 
ments of discovered bones. 

Still other types are those in which we imagine 
changes in the size, duration, or intensity of per- 
ceived or imaged objects. The giants and pygmies 
of Gulliver's Travels are familiar examples of the 
first sort of imaginative changes, i. e., in respect to 
size. Impressive pictures of the prolongation of cer- 
tain kinds of experiences are given in the mediaeval 
portrayal of the never ending torture of the wicked 
(duration). The intensity of our experiences is 
readily susceptible to imaginary change. For in- 
stance, we may easily picture the brightness of the 
moon much greater than we have ever known it, and 
that of the brightest sun fading into blackness. 



IMAGINAI'ION 231 

The Limits of Imagination. — To the popular mind, 
the term 'creations of the imagination' means, on the 
one hand, weird and fantastic mental pictures, the 
phantoms of heat oppressed brains, romances, de- 
lusions, and all manner of unrealities; and on the 
other, it means the great creations of artistic genius, 
which far surpass the powers of Ordinary mortals. 
From this conception of the nature of imagination 
it is only a step to the belief that there is a touch of 
the miraculous in its works, that imagination in 
some measure transcends the limits of the world of 
experience and in fact creates things wholly new to 
earth and sky. 

Over against this tendency to ascribe somewhat 
of the supernatural to the imagination stand the 
sobering words of Locke that, "the mind can frame 
unto itself no one new simple idea;" and those of 
Sully that, "all imaginative activity is limited by 
experience ; . . . . there can be no such thing as 
a perfectly new creation." Imagination is not a 
process of constructing new forms out of new ele- 
ments of its own creation. Its work consists in re- 
arranging and recasting perceived and imaged ob- 
jects. As the builder requires raw materials in the 
form of bricks and stone and mortar, so the imagi- 
nation for its constructions requires a fund of raw 
materials in the form of perceptual and imaginal 
experiences. Even the genius of a Milton or a Mo- 
zart or a Shakespeare in no case transcends the lim- 
its of experience. The characteristics of Milton's 
Satan, for example, are only the traits of ordinary 
mortals rearranged, intensified, and magnified. Mil- 
ton's genius consisted not in imagining absolutely 



232 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

new qualities, emotions, sentiments, motives, de- 
sires, but in doing marvelous things with those 
which everyday experience and observation fur- 
nishes. 

We have just pointed out that the raw materials, 
the elements of our imaginative constructions, are 
furnished by the ^experiences of our daily life. It is 
in order to observe next that the patterns or models 
which control imaginative activities are also given 
in experience. For example, the most common pat- 
tern of imaginative construction, namely, that which 
consists essentially in the double process of isolating 
one object or quality and combining it with another 
has countless prototypes in the experience of every- 
day life. All about us from early infancy we see 
objects and their parts detached and placed in new 
relations or new combinations. So, when later we 
construct imaginatively a Cerberus, or a griffin, we 
merely copy a method of dealing with objects which 
is already familiar. So also when we set out with a 
fragment or portion of a statue or inscription or 
extinct animal form and proceed to reconstruct it 
imaginatively, our method is the same as that of the 
boy who finds a detached part of an old machine and 
sets out to find the lost parts or to think what the 
original was like. And in those activities which con- 
sist in imaginative changes in the size or intensity 
or duration of objects, the pattern is very obviously 
derived from experience. Increase and decrease 
of objects in respect to these three attributes are 
constantly going on all about us ; and the observation 
of these changes doubtless furnishes the pattern for 
this class of imaginative constructions. 



IMAGINATION 233 

Passive and Active Imagination. — It is customary 
to distinguish 'passive' from 'active' imagination. 
In the former, the images appear spontaneously, run 
their course freely, without conscious control, and 
imaginal changes and combinations arise capri- 
ciously as in day-dreaming, in building air-castles, 
in the fancies of childhood or when one dreamily 
follows the description of a bit of natural scenery, 
or the incidents of a story. The distinguishing mark 
of the 'active', or creative imagination is that it is 
controlled and guided by a definite purpose. When 
a sculptor sets to work to frame an ideal image of 
Mars, or the astronomer to foretell the times and 
places at which an approaching comet will be vis- 
ible, or the inventor to design a vehicle propelled by 
steam, he exercises what is commonly called 'active' 
imagination. And the imaginative construction of 
the artist or scientist or inventor consists in the 
selection and modification of those recurring images 
that accord with his general purpose and the rejec- 
tion of those that do not. 

It is thus clear that active imagination bears a 
close resemblance to the process of active recall as 
described in the preceding chapter (p. 214 f ) . Both 
processes are guided by a definite purpose; in both 
the persistence of the purpose determines, for the 
time being, and in some degree, the character of the 
recurring images, and in both cases we have the 
selection from the train of revived images those that 
are congruous with our general purpose and the 
rejection of those that are not. Moreover, the suc- 
cess of a piece of creative imagination, like that of 
the effort to recall a forgotten name, depends upon 



234 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the revival, as occasion requires, of images that are 
appropriate to the case in hand. This is popularly 
expressed by saying that creative imagination, as 
regards a given kind of objects, requires a mind 
richly furnished with images relevant thereto, and 
that these shall be easily revivable. 

The Beginnings of Imagination. — In one's study 
of the early stages of the development of the imagi- 
native activity it is impossible to separate images 
of imagination from memory-images or from men- 
tal images, in the broad meaning. One cannot at 
first draw sharp lines and say — here we have the 
one, there another. Nor is it true, as some writers 
believe, that the child must have a store of mental 
images before the imagination can 'take flight', if 
by 'store of mental images', is meant a stock of 
definite, literal copies which might be inventoried as 
raw material which is susceptible of imaginative 
transformation. The truth is rather that the various 
kinds of images are inextricably interwoven in all 
early imaging. And yet imagination, in the mean- 
ing already stated, is involved in certain kinds of 
infant behavior, namely (1) in expressions of de- 
sire; (2) in practical devices to bring about given 
ends; (3) in imitative play ; (4) in free, uncontrolled 
play; and our purpose in the following paragraphs 
is to indicate the part it plays therein. 

Expressions of Desire Involving Imagination. — The 
child's first desires probably are for the repetition of 
pleasurable experiences which he recalls. But there 
comes a time — early in the second year, as a rule — 
when he begins to picture neiv objects and new rela- 



IMAGINATION 235 

tions of objects which he desires. One observer 
reports, for example, that his subject in his eight- 
eenth month would pat on the floor and cry 'dee' 
when he wanted a given article placed on the floor 
in a certain place where he could get hold of it. 
Again, during his thirty-first month, the same child 
frequently imaged huge Os which he wanted drawn 
for him, expressing his desire for them by stretch- 
ing his arms far apart and above his head. Now 
these simple expressions involve something besides 
revived images. In the first instance, the child im- 
agined the position of the toys changed from the 
shelf out of his reach to a particular place on the 
floor (or on a chair) where he could reach them; in 
the second, he imagined more wonderful Os than 
he had ever seen. 

Imagination in Practical Devices. — ^Imagination 
appears very early in the child's practical devices 
to gain given ends. For instance, early in his fif- 
teenth month, a certain child was observed to push 
a child's chair to a table, then climb up in the chair 
in order to reach spoons, cups, and other table-ware. 
This action, while probably imitative in some degree 
was not wholly so. The child doubtless had a lively 
imagination of being engaged with the interesting 
table-ware when he started to the table with the 
chair. A little later, one may observe entirely orig- 
inal devices in which the child shows initiative, in 
which he acts out a new image. For example, dur- 
ing a rain-storm, a certain child, eighteen months 
old, went about the room closing the inside window 
shutters to keep out the storm, as he supposed. In 



236 ELEMENTS OP PSYCHOLOGY 

the same child's twenty-fifth month, in his efforts to 
get a kitten to eat a piece of toast, which was lying 
on a table, he employed the unusual device of lifting 
the kitten to the table, and then rubbed its nose over 
the toast instead of taking the bread and giving it 
to his pet as an older child would have done. 

Imitative Play. — How much of the baby's imitat- 
ive play is an eff'ort literally to copy his models ? how 
much is free realization of an idea which has been 
suggested by them? One cannot say definitely; but 
it is safe to say that few children at play are such 
slavish copiers as not to transform, in some measure, 
the things they imitate. For instance, in the well- 
known doll-play of little children, this transforming 
tendency is clearly present. Almost any manage- 
able thing — a bit of rag, a stick, a few straws — 
may serve as a doll which is fed, dressed, punished, 
put to bed, doctored, without any thought of the 
reality or unreality of the imaged actions. In doll- 
play the child moves in a world which is so com- 
pletely fanciful in character that he fails to note 
what the older person calls its incongruities. 

Constructive Imagination in free, uncontrolled Play. 

— Every observer of children knows how in their 
play they represent all sorts of objects and scenes 
by means of simple articles like blocks, pebbles, 
buttons, sticks ; and also how readily the child- 
mind transforms such articles .into things of life 
and action — horses, cattle, soldiers, locomotives 

— and how they are marshaled to represent scenes 
which have greatly impressed the child, and which 
he wishes to repeat. For instance, the child goes to 



IMAGINATION 237 

church and upon his return home, plays 'church', 
using chairs, tables, blocks — whatever comes to 
hand to represent those features of the church serv- 
ice which impressed themselves upon him. In like 
manner, school, keeping store, a circus parade, are 
reproduced in their most striking features by means 
of such articles as the child can command. As one 
author remarks, the blocks or chairs or shells form 
the one bit of necessary substantiality from which 
the child fancy takes its flight, and around which it 
builds its imaginary scenes. 

A notable difference between the baby's imaginal con- 
sciousness and the adult's may be noted in passing, namely, 
the absence in the former of what are called 'trains of im- 
agery'. In the developed mind, most of the images that 
arise in consciousness are aroused or suggested, by imme- 
diately preceding images. An image appears in conscious- 
ness, the first calls up a second, the second a third, the sec- 
ond and third may revive new ones, and we have what we 
call a train of imagery, often uninterrupted by outside stim- 
uli. But trains of imagery are unknown, probably, to the 
child under two. He hears the word 'ball', or 'clock', or 
'hat', the image of the object comes to his mind and there 
the process ends, unless the child happens to want the object 
named; while in the mature mind any one of these words 
may very easily start a train of images. 

Individual Differences in Imagination. — In our 
chapter on Mental Images we saw that individuals 
may be classified roughly according to the differ- 
ences in the sensory basis, or source, of their favor- 
ite or predominant forms of imagery. We may also 
classify individuals in respect to the variations in 
their ability to manipulate imaginatively different 



238 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

kinds of objects. Thus one person possesses un- 
usual ability for imaging mechanical devices of 
various sorts; a second, most easily images the con- 
duct and emotional reactions of human beings; 
while a third shows greatest facility in imaging proc- 
esses and relations in nature. For example, an 
Edison or a Fulton possesses highly developed 
powers of imaging in the field of mechanical inven- 
tion; a Shakespeare or a Gladstone, in that of hu- 
man nature and politics; a Darwin or a Tyndall, in 
respect to the phenomena of the physical world; 
and it seems not unreasonable to suppose that sim- 
ilar differences exist among people generally, but 
in the latter case they are not so conspicuous as they 
often are when one is comparing the achievements 
of great men. 

The causes of individual differences of this kind 
cannot at present be stated with even a semblance 
of scientific precision or completeness. It is pop- 
ularly believed that they, like others, are due in part 
to differences in native endowment, or original 
nature, in part to the varying educational influences 
of childhood, and partly to the special requirements 
of chosen occupations. And so far, the popular view 
is doubtless correct. For example, the difference 
between the imaginative achievements of the poet 
and the soldier, or between those of the musician 
and those of the man of science, is doubtless due 
partly to differences in their inherited mental con- 
stitutions. It is hardly conceivable that environ- 
mental influences alone could have produced the 
differences between the imaginative powers of Ten- 



IMAGINATION 239 

nyson and Wellington, or Bismarck and Schiller; 
and it is past thinking that Newton or Kant in- 
herited gifts of imaginative creation comparable to 
those of Shelley or Beethoven, comparable, that is, 
as regards the character of the objects in respect 
to which their imaginative processes moved most 
freely.^ 

Common opinion is right also in attributing indi- 
vidual differences in imagination in part to differ- 
ences in home and school education. To take an ex- 
treme case — a child whose school days are spent in 
studying the behavior of plants and animals, in por- 
ing over stories of travel and adventure, in rehears- 
ing historical narratives, in following the visions of 
the poets, will, other things equal, develop imagina- 
tive powers which far surpass those of a child whose 
days are spent in memorizing meaningless symbols. 
This is only to say that the imaging function grows 
by exercise, and that when the exercise is lacking, 
the function atrophies. Special training or exercise 
also produces characteristic differences in imagina- 
tion. Thus, a child's ability to imagine new combi- 
nations of musical tones, to design new forms for 
moulding clay, to picture strange peoples, their cus- 
toms and institutions, depends upon imaginative 
training in these subjects. The child's imagination 
takes character from the materials in which it is 
exercised. 



^ It would be interesting to inquire concerning the relationship 
between 'imaglnal type' and the ability 'to manipulate imagina- 
tively' different classes of objects. 



240 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

It is merely a further application of the principle 
just stated to say that individual differences in im- 
agination depend partly upon differences in the 
imaginative requirements of different occupations. 
The oculist's imagination differs from the archi- 
tect's, the naval officer's from the pianist's, the phy- 
sicist's from the actor's, simply because the stocks 
of images with which each habitually works differ, 
and because these different occupations require dif- 
ferent imaginative habits. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Ch. VIIL 

James : Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Chs. XVI, XVIII. 

Judd: Psychology, Ch. XI. 

Stout: The Groundwork of Psychology, Ch. XII. 

Sully: The Human Mind, Vol. I, Ch. X. 

Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology. §§ 112-119. 



CHAPTER XI 

THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 

The General Nature of Thinking. — We cannot be- 
gin our study of thought and the thought processes 
better than with the following quotation from 
James : — 

"As our hands may hold a bit of wood and a knife, and 
yet do naught with either ; so our mind may simply be aware 
of a thing's existence, and yet neither attend to it nor dis- 
criminate it, neither locate nor count nor compare .... 
nor recognize it articulately as having been met before. At 
the same time we know that, instead of staring at it in this 
entranced and senseless way, we may rally our activity in 
a moment, and locate, class, compare, count, and judge it. 

The result of the thought's operating on the 

data given to sense is to transform the order in which expe- 
rience co7nes into an entirely different order, that of the con- 
ceived world.^ 

Our account of the general nature of thinking will 
be little more than an emphasis of the several fea- 
tures of this quotation. 

In the first place, we are to conceive of the thought 
processeis as belonging in a special sense to the 
mind's own operations. If we say that our sense- 
experiences, together with the memories and imagi- 
nations that are built up out of them, are, in a way, 
forced upon us or arise in response to our environ- 
mental influences, then by way of contrast we may 



1 Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, p. 481 f, 
16 (241) 



242 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

say that the thought processes — our judgments, our 
comparisons, our analyses, and our classifications — 
belong in a special manner to the mind's own activ- 
ities; thoughts seem to be 'mind born', to be expe- 
riences which do not originate in the direct in- 
fluences of our environment. To illustrate : the sen- 
sations, red, blue, sour, warmth, fragrant, and so 
on, are caused by external objects acting upon the 
sense-organs; but the thought that these sensations 
differ is a distinctively mental addition to the bare 
sensory experiences. Again, a child's perceptions 
of a fish, a sparrow, and a gorilla, as individual ob- 
jects, since they are dependent upon the stimulation 
of the sense-organs, belong, in the broad classifica- 
tion just indicated, to the sensory field; but to know 
these objects as vertebrates involves a distinctively 
mental addition to the bare perceptions — the thought, 
namely, that despite their conspicuous dissimilari- 
ties they are alike in having a backbone of bony ver- 
tebree. The thought of this similarity amidst enor- 
mous differences was clearly, in the first instance at 
any rate, a 'mind born' process, not something im- 
pressed from without. 

In the second place, we are to conceive of thought 
as a mental playing with, an active manipulation of 
the materials given in sensation, feeling, perception, 
and memory. Its chief function is not to yield new 
sensations, new feelings, new memories, but rather 
to work over the materials already in stock, to dis- 
cover their relations, to classify, and to render judg- 
ments concerning them. Stated otherwise, thought's 
chief function is to transform "the order of nature. 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 243 

which', as Mill writes, 'as perceived at a first glance, 
presents at every instant a chaos followed by an- 
other chaos," into an orderly world of relations, to 
ascertain differences and likenesses where they are 
at first hidden, to search out elements and essential 
features, to number and group and classify the ma- 
terials given in sensation and memory. To take a 
simple illustration : contrast the world which the 
child of six knows and lives in with that of an edu- 
cated adult. The former knows nothing of the dis- 
tinctions of vegetable, animal, and mineral king- 
doms, of physical and psychical, of chemical and 
physical changes, of metals and non-metals, of stars 
and planets, of consonants and vowels, of indicative 
and subjunctive; these and the numberless distinc- 
tions which are made in the process of education are 
highly artificial, are not given in the 'order of na- 
ture', and are, in the main, the results of the thought 
processes; and they are, of course, the rarest prod- 
ucts, and, for our intellectual life, the most impor- 
tant creations of our mental activities. In a word, 
to think is to manipulate, to operate on, the data 
already in store. Thinking in its completest forms 
yields a new fund of experiences which we know by 
the names of comparisons, analyses, classifications, 
abstractions, judgments, and inferences; and these 
comparisons, analyses, classifications, etc., together 
make up the transformations which thought works 
in the materials that originate in sensations and 
feelings. 

Thought Processes as Functions. — A thought process, 
like every other cognitive process, may be studied from either 



244 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the structural or the functional point of view; that is, we 
may study the process as it is in itself, as an item in the 
stream of consciousness, or we may fix attention upon its 
function, upon its meaning, the object or objects which it 
designates. The difference between these two ways of re- 
garding a psychical process may be emphasized by recalling 
a difference in point of view which was indicated in our 
earlier chapters. It was there seen that from one point of 
view we may regard sensations, e. g., of redness, sweetness, 
warmth, and the like, as conscious processes, as mental ex- 
istences; and that from another point of view, we may re- 
gard them as consciousnesses of the qualities of objects, as 
the raw material of our world of knowledge. It was said 
also that the psychologist may limit his task to the analysis 
and description of these sensory experiences as items in the 
conscious stream and to the discovery and formulation of the 
laws of their combination with other conscious processes; he 
may think only of the sensory processes as they are in them- 
selves and of their interrelations. He may, however, from 
another point of view, be interested primarily in the fact 
that sensations constitute the raw material out of which our 
knowledge of the external world is constructed and in the 
functions which the several kinds of sensations thus serve. 
In short, the distinction there drawn was between sensations 
as items of the stream of consciousness and sensations as 
acquaintance with the qualities of objects. Similarly, we 
may consider the structure of the thought processes, what 
they are like as phenomena of consciousness, or we may con- 
sider their meanings, their objective references. In the pres- 
ent study we shall be concerned chiefly with the thought 
processes as functions, and only incidentally with their struc- 
ture. 

The Thought Processes. — From our present point 
of view we may distinguish broadly two classes of 
thought processes, or functions. To the first class, 
belong those mental activities which consist essen- 
tially in designating, pointing out, objects; to the 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 245 

second class, belong those processes which consist 
essentially in designating relations between objects. 
Stated otherwise, we may think of, mentally point 
toward, mean, either material things, or our own 
or others' consciousnesses ; these mental designa- 
tions, or meanings, we may call 'thoughts of. We 
may also think of a thing's relations to other things : 
these thoughts we may call 'thoughts about'. In 
short, all thoughts are either thoughts of or thoughts 
about. The thought of, the bare designation of an 
object, we shall call Ideation, or Conception; the 
thought about a thing, which as we have seen, is 
the same as the thought of its relation or relations 
to other things, we may call Judgment. 

In the remaining pages of the present chapter we 
shall first study Ideation in the broad meaning just 
indicated, and also Abstraction, a special form of 
the ideating process. Next we shall explain a little 
farther the nature of Judgment, after which Rea- 
soning, the process in which thought reaches its 
clearest and fullest expression, shall have a few 
pages. In the next chapter we shall consider certain 
of the more complicated thought processes. 

Thought as Ideation. — In our present meaning of 
the term, to think of anything is to refer to it, to 
designate it, to mean it. Thus we say we are think- 
ing of the ships at sea, or of the effects of a heavy 
frost on the budding fruit, or of the relative value 
of two college studies. We do not mean to say ivhat 
we are thinking about the ships or the frost effects 
or the values of the college studies ; we mean merely 
to convey the information that these things are, at 



246 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the present moment, subjects under consideration. 
So, in this sense of the term, to think of a thing is 
to designate it, to select it from among all other pos- 
sible subjects as a topic of discourse or reflection. 
A thought of is a reference to, the identification or 
designation of, a thing or group of things. 

The terms idea and ideate are frequently used as 
the equivalents of thought and think, in the present 
meaning of the two latter terms. But the student 
should observe that, in the present connection, to 
think of, or ideate, a thing does not mean to form 
a mental image of it. The mental process is merely 
one of referring to, of designating, an object. 
Thought and ideate, as here used, are equivalent to 
James' term 'conception' in the sentence, "The 
function by which we ... . identify a numer- 
ically distinct and permanent subject of discourse is 
called conception." 

The expression 'thought of this and that seems to imply 
that the thought is always one thing and the thing thought 
of is always another. As a rule, it is true, the thought 
and the object of thought are, for the common sense point 
of view, two different things; e. g., the thought of the Par- 
thenon, the act of mentally designating the Grecian temple 
is one thing, the temple itself, another. Not infrequently, 
however, the 'thought of the object' and the 'object of 
thought' are one and the same thing. Thus in the sentence, 
'I am thinking of the difference in meaning between the two 
words 'famous' and 'notorious', my thought is the difference, 
as I understand it; the 'thought' and 'the object of thought' 
are one and the same. But, to repeat, to think of a thing, 
in its primary sense, means merely to refer to it, to point 
it out, to identify it. 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 247 

Thought as Abstraction. — The term 'abstraction' 
has three well-defined meanings in psychology. 
Sometimes it means attention to some feature, 
quality, or element of a complex object, as when one 
examines the form of a leaf and neglects for the 
time being its color, size, venation, and functions ; 
or when one centers attention on Hamlet's rash and 
impetuous behavior at Ophelia's grave and forgets 
his usual irresoluteness. 

At other times, and more frequently, perhaps, ab- 
straction means the thought of a feature or quality 
which is common to a group or class of objects. The 
thoughts of the brilliancy of diamonds or of the 
humor or pathos of Dickens' novels or of the cour- 
age of Roman soldiers may serve as illustrations of 
the second meaning of abstraction. 

At still other times, abstraction means the thought 
of general or universal qualities, attributes, condi- 
tions. Examples are, thoughts of brightness, sour- 
ness, courage, motion, in general, i. e., without ref- 
erence to any one of the multitude of individual 
things that may be described as bright, sour, mov- 
ing, courageous. Usually the context will enable the 
student to tell in which of the three senses the term 
is used, whether it means the thought of a particular 
part of a complex, or the thought of a property com- 
mon to a group of objects, or of an abstract uni- 
versal. 

How Abstract Meanings Arise. — Abstraction, in 
in the first of the senses just mentioned, as a simple 
process of isolating some feature of a complex, e. g., 
the tones of the clarionet in an orchestral perform- 



248 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ance, is essentially the same as the attentive process, 
so-called. To abstract a feature or aspect of a given 
object, event, or situation is, in this sense, to attend 
to it; and the conditions of abstraction and attention 
are the same. Now the conditions, or determinants, 
of attention are, as we have seen in an earlier sec- 
tion, that the object shall possess either a certain 
intensity or a certain quality or suddenness or nov- 
elty, or shall be repeated a number of times, or shall 
be congruous with one's present interests whether 
instinctive or acquired. Thus loud sounds, bright 
colors, bitter tastes, novel or suddenly appearing im- 
pressions of all kinds attract or even compel atten- 
tion. Likewise, oft repeated stimuli force them- 
selves to the focus of consciousness. And everyday 
experience furnishes multitudes of illustrations of 
the tendency of impressions that are congruous with 
one's present consciousness to attain prominence in 
the conscious field. Shells or beach pebbles that en- 
tirely escape the notice of most pleasure seekers, 
stand out like brilliants to the boy who is hunting 
that particular kind and whose mind is full of their 
images. 

It is not difficult to account for abstractions of the 
second class, i. e., to understand how we come to 
think of a given attribute as common to a group of 
objects, e. g., of brightness as a property of the 
stars or of ferocity as a characteristic of lions. All 
that is required is a multitude of experiences with 
members of the group, that these experiences shall 
possess a high degree of uniformity, and that the 
conditions of the experiences shall be such that the 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 249 

particular feature shall frequently attain vividness 
in our consciousness. For example, our idea of fero- 
city as a characteristic of lions has grown up very 
easily out of a practically uniform racial experience 
with these animals. As we say in everyday speech, 
experience has taught that lions, as a class, are fero- 
cious. In the same way, our knowledge of the var- 
ious common properties of the multitudes of groups 
of objects in our environment has come into being. 

The third kind of abstractions described above, 
the thoughts, e. g., of brightness, of color, of tri- 
angle, of stature, of ferocity, of motion, of direction, 
which are not of any particular brightness, color, 
triangle, stature, ferocity, motion or direction, while 
not mysterious affairs, belong to a higher stage of 
mental development and are evidently rarer proc- 
esses than abstraction in the two senses just men- 
tioned. 

If the question concerning the original formation 
of abstractions of this last mentioned class relates 
to individual development, i. e., how does a child 
that is born into a community where abstractions of 
this kind are the common property of all its mem- 
bers ever come to think of motion, color, stature, 
direction, etc., which are no particular motions, col- 
ors, statures, or directions, tbe answer would be that 
these thoughts are absorbed along with the words 
which name them. They are parts of such a child's 
intellectual inheritance, and he gets possession of 
them as rapidly as he can acquire the intelligent use 
of the words which serve as their vehicles. At first, 
to be sure, the pupil over his geometry or his physics 



250 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY ' 

lesson thinks of particular triangles and of par- 
ticular instances of motion, just as at first the word 
'cat' or 'horse' means, to the child, some particular 
cat or horse. But in time, the pupil acquires the 
ability to think of triangle and motion without 
thinking of particular triangles or motions. 

If, however, our question is, how did the human 
race, or certain portions of it, come into possession 
of such a wealth of 'abstract general ideas,' like 
those expressed by the words color, triangle, animal, 
plant, mineral, sound, motion, velocity — if it is asked 
what were the experiences out of which these 
thoughts rolled, so to say, and who were the geniuses 
in whose minds they first arose, and who fixed them 
and made them permanent additions to the intellect- 
ual wealth of the race by naming them? then we 
must say that the answers are largely hidden away 
in the long ages of forgotten racial experience. We 
say 'are largely', not wholly, hidden, since modern 
research furnishes a plausible account of the origin 
of many of our abstract meanings. 

The method most widely employed in the attempt 
to get light on the history of these meanings, and in- 
deed, in the historical study of all meanings, may 
be called the 'linguistic'. That is, an effort is made 
to trace the history of meanings by tracing the 
history of the verbal forms which serve as their 
vehicles. Titchener gives a particularly good illus- 
tration, which is here quoted in part, of the use of 
this method: 

"If the logician were speaking of the relation which the 
concept 'whiteness' bears to the substance 'snow', he would 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 251 

call it an attribute of that substance. An attribute is a 
characteristic or property or mark of a substance. How has 
the concept [the abstract idea, 'attribute'] been formed? 

"We find in Latin the word tribus which means 'tribe', a 
community, a society of men. In Latin we also find the verb 
tribuo 'to assign' or 'give'; and the past participle of this is 
kept in the English tribute. 'Tribute' means 'what is done 
by the tribe'; and 'what is done by the tribe' is to pay for 
protection, to give or bestow something upon a chieftain or 
a more powerful tribe in return for favours received. The 
special meaning retained in 'tribute' has become a general 
meaning ('to give,' simply) in the verb tribuo. — Finally, 
from tribuo comes 'attribute', that which is assigned or 
granted to something. It is aJon^Toad that leads from the 
village community through the assessment of the community 
to the logical characteristic but it is without doubt the 
road that this concept travelled.'" 

Thought as Judgment. — We have defined Judg- 
ment as the thought of a relation between or among 
objects. In this case, the thought of relationship is 
the essential, the characteristic mark of the judging 
process. Now this definition may seem open to the 
criticism that it makes of judgment the affirmation 
of a relation in which nothing is related, the desig- 
nation of the keystone of an arch which has not been 
constructed, which, of course, is an absurdity. The 
answer to this possible objection is that, in our view, 
the judgment of relation implies the related things, 
the parts of the arch which are held in place by the 
keystone, and that, to continue the figure, judgment 
is a process of designating, pointing to the keystone, 
and to the function it performs. Or, put in another 
way, a judgment is a thought-of-a-relation-between- 



PrUner of Psychology^ 1907, p. 224. 



252 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY > 

objects. It may be remarked, further, that the fore- 
going definition is obviously a departure from cer- 
tain current teaching which makes the conscious- 
ness of wholeness (which, in our view, is only one 
form or instance of judgment) the distinguishing 
mark of the judging process. 

Not infrequently, in the author's experience, students are 
puzzled by the expression, 'the thought of a thing's relations 
to other things'. This difficulty, when it becomes articulate, 
assumes the form, 'what is it to think of relations between 
objects? give us some examples.' It seems desirable, there- 
fore, to try to clear away this obstacle at the outset. 

Two simple illustrations will suffice. Suppose one is think- 
ing of a boulder's 'relations' to other things. To assert that 
the boulder lies to the right or left, east or west, above or 
below, inside or outside, of some other specified thing, that 
it is east of a given oak tree and inside an iron fence, is 
to utter judgments regarding its spatial relations. Tempor- 
ally regarded, one may continue, the boulder in its pres- 
ent form antedates certain geologic events and is subsequent 
to certain others. Again, one is thinking of causal relations 
when one affirms that the boulder's present form and posi- 
tion are due to glacial action. One may designate its further 
relations by noting that it is composed of certain substances 
and belongs to such and such a class of rocks. These may 
serve as examples of statements regarding the physical rela- 
tions in which objects stand to one another. We also speak 
of 'human relations', the relations in which human beings 
stand to one another, e. g., parent and child, principal and 
agent, author and reader, judge and jury, general and army, 
class and pupil, society and individual, and so on. 

Judgment as Synthesis. — In a certain sense, every 
judgment is a mental synthesis, a process of men- 
tally uniting, or combining, two or more of our ideas 
or meanings. This is true even of the analytic judg- 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 253 

ments which consist in breaking up a complex 
whole into a number of distinguishable parts. Thus 
in the judgments whereby we designate the sensory 
qualities of a lemon as yellowish in color, oblong in 
shape, sourish in taste, or as soft or hard, rough or 
smooth, fragrant or odorless, we have a mental 
union of the idea lemon and its several properties. 
It is true even of the so-called negative judgments 
which deny the objective connection of objects no 
less than of the affirmative ones ; both involve the 
mental togetherness of their terms. For example, 
in order to judge, 'iron is not a precious metal' the 
ideas 'iron' and 'precious metal' must both be to- 
gether in consciousness, in the same way that the 
terms 'iron' and 'useful metal' are together in the 
judgment — 'iron is a useful metal'. The only dif- 
ference is that a relationship is affirmed in the one 
case and denied in the other. Our present concern, 
however, is not with judgment in this meaning, but 
rather with the fact that multitudes of judgments 
are thoughts of the union or the connection of given 
objects, with the fact that their purpose or function 
is to designate the real or objective union of the 
things in reference to which they are rendered. 

The practically most important classes of judg- 
ments in this meaning are (1) judgments of cause 
and effect, (2) of substance and attribute, (3) of 
spatial and temporal relations. We shall give a fev/ 
examples of each class. 

Judgments of Objective Relations. — Judgments that 
given things are the causes of other given things 



254 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

occupy a large place in our thinking from early 
childhood. 

While we are not concerned here to trace the 
development of the scientific idea of causation, it 
may be in place to remark that the psychological 
beginnings of causal judgments are found probably 
in the child's observations of the results of his own 
activities. Thus, in manipulating toys, the child 
soon observes a relationship between certain of his 
own actions and particular changes in the toys — 
say changes of position or in sounds produced. 
Gradually thereafter, the notion emerges that every 
change in both the material and mental worlds has 
a cause ; and in time, thoughts of, and inquiries con- 
cerning, the cause and effect relationship come to 
hold a large place in one's thinking. 

A second large class of judgments of objective 
connection pertain to the substance-attribute rela- 
tionship. The common words bright, dim, warm, 
cold, sweet, bitter, hard, soft, rough, smooth, and 
the like form the predicates of this class of judg- 
ments. Needless to say, they make their appearance 
early and, taken together, they constitute probably 
the largest single group of terms employed in the 
average person's thinking. 

Judgments that designate the temporal and spa- 
tial relations of objects are expressed by such ad- 
verbs as, — before, antecedent, after, subsequent, 
earlier, later, coincidently, concurrently, and the like 
. . . . The words above, below, inside, outside, 
to the right, to the left, upon, underneath, opposite, 
same (of direction), will serve as illustrations of 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 255 

the terms employed in judgments of spatial relation. 

It may help us to realize how large a place judgments of 
cause and effect, of substance and attribute, and of temporal 
and spatial relations occupy in our thinking to recall that 
many of our text-books are made up chiefly of these classes 
of judgments. For example, a text in political history con- 
sists of statements of when and where given historical events 
occurred, and, in some cases, consideration of their under- 
lying causes. Books on biology describe the properties, hab- 
itats, and the grounds of the behavior of living things. A 
treatise on psychology consists mainly, of judgments in re- 
spect to the properties, the temporal sequence, and the causal 
relations of mental processes. In a word, all our school sub- 
jects, in so far as they are scientific in aim, are concerned 
with the temporal, spatial, attributive, and causal relations 
of their respective subject matters; they purport to be an- 
swers to the questions — what? when? where? why? 

Relation of Ideation and Judgment. — We have said 
a number of times, in the course of our study, that 
our mental activities are more intimately related 
than one might infer from a hasty survey of the 
chapter headings of a text-book of psychology ; that 
we should think of such terms as Perception, Mem- 
ory, Imagination, Thought, as the names of the dis- 
tinguishable or the dominant aspects of the succes- 
sive portions of the stream of consciousness, not as 
the names of isolated activities, independent and 
sharply marked off from one another. Thus each 
of the functions just named involves, in some meas- 
ure, the others. Every perception, for instance, in- 
volves memory and thought; thought involves mem-- 
ory and imagination ; and imagination, perceptual 
and thought factors. It is only in our effort to psy- 



256 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

chologize our experience that we distinguish its 
several phases and give them separate names. 

We have next to remark that our distinction of 
the thought processes, as either Ideations or Judg- 
ments, does not mean that they are wholly distinct 
functions. As a matter of fact, they are closely 
related; the one always involves the other. Or, 
stated otherwise, every case of ideation is, in a cer- 
tain sense, a judgment, and every judgment in- 
volves ideation. Thus, in order to think of, to mean, 
a tree or a star one must think of some of its rela- 
tions, of its kind, its name or qualities or location, 
or possibly the bare thought of its existence, that it 
belongs to the world of things. In a word, all 
thoughts of things are really implicit judgments. 
Even the rudimentary forms of recognition, the first 
dim thoughts that present experiences are similar 
to or different from earlier ones ; the infant's earliest 
acts of intellectually seizing upon and lifting apart 
one feature of his world from the total confused mass 
of sensations and feelings, are rudimentary judg- 
ments. 

The presence of ideation in judgment is more 
easily observed. For instance, in order to judge — 
'Eagles belong to the zoological order of raptores' 
(birds of prey), or that 'Cicero was an orator', one 
must first conceive of, mean, the objects related. 
The judgment consists in the thought of the relation 
between the conceived objects. 

Judgment and Reasoning. — According to the class- 
ification proposed in this chapter, there are two 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 257 

fundamental forms or kinds of thought processes : 
thoughts of, and thoughts about, or conceptions and 
judgments. Reasoning belongs, in this broad classi- 
fication, to the group of thoughts about, or judg- 
ments; reasoning is a form of judging; or, more 
accurately, reasoning is a series of intimately re- 
lated judgments. A part of the work of the suc- 
ceeding paragraphs will consist in showing wherein 
judgment and reasoning, as thought processes, are 
alike and wherein they are different. 

Reasoning. — For centuries man has claimed the 
proud distinction of being the reasoning animal. But 
more recently the critic and the iconoclast have come 
forth to challenge man's exclusive claim to this 
superiority, and have maintained that the lower ani- 
mals also reason. It is foreign to our purpose to 
enter into the merits of the debate that has ensued. 
It may be observed, however, that the controversy 
has been prolonged by the failure either to recognize 
or to state clearly, the fact that there are several 
kinds, grades, or stages of the reasoning activity. 
Evidently, the final answer to the question, "Do ani- 
mals reason?" will depend upon what precisely we 
shall mean by 'reason'. 

We may distinguish broadly two forms of the 
reasoning activity according to the extent to which 
the grounds of a given judgment, or conclusion, are 
factors of the reasoning process. In the first form, 
explicit reasoning — reasoning in the narrow and 
more precise meaning of the term — the grounds of 
the conclusion are clearly and fully set forth ; while 



258 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

in the second, implicit reasoning, the grounds are 
only in part present to consciousness. 

Explicit Reasoning. — Explicit reasoning is often 
described as a series of judgments of whose grounds 
we are clearly conscious ; or as the process of deriv- 
ing from given propositions their natural conclus- 
ions, those that necessarily result from them. Now, 
while these and similar statements may be accepted 
as formally correct, they really tell us very little 
about the intimate nature of the reasoning process. 
Ii is necessary, therefore, to search farther for its 
more or less hidden factors. We have to inquire par- 
ticularly concerning the grounds whereby we pass 
from judgment to judgment in reasoning. 

As an aid in this inquiry, let us suppose the case 
of a child who has heard many stories of the fero- 
city of lions, of how they pounce upon and devour 
weaker animals, including human beings, but who 
has never seen a lion or even a picture of one, and 
so has no idea of what sort of creatures lions are, 
except that they are dangerous. Let us suppose, 
further, that the child now visits a menagerie, and 
that, after a time, pauses in front of a cage con- 
taining a lion which we may call 'Duke'. At first, 
the child's manner is one of admiration, interested 
curiosity, desire to pat Duke, and so on. Then some 
one tells him that Duke, the creature in the cage, is 
a lion. At once the child recalls the fact that lions 
are dangerous and he immediately concludes that 
this particular lion is dangerous ; his admiration and 
longing to pat give way to fear and shrinking. His 
earlier knowledge, stated in the form of a judgment. 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 259 

is : Lions are dangerous ; his new knowledge, sim- 
ilarly stated, is — this animal, Duke, is a lion ; the 
conclusion, Duke is dangerous, together with the 
resulting change in behavior, quickly follow. 

A second illustration of reasoning, in the stricter 
meaning of the term, is afforded by the story of the 
discovery of the planet, Neptune. The principal 
events that led to the discovery were: (1) The com- 
putation of the motion of the planet Uranus upon 
the basis of the known influences of the sun, Jupiter 
and Saturn, i. e., the prediction of the course of 
Uranus on the basis of these observed influences ; 
(2) the observation that the actual motion of 
Uranus deviated from the tables based upon the 
attractive force of these bodies; (3) the proof first 
by Adams and later by LeVerrier that the irregu- 
larities of the Uranian orbit could only be produced 
by some body exterior thereto; (4) Galle's discovery 
of Neptune, the disturbing force, in 1846. A formal 
statement of the steps in the reasoning which led 
to the discovery of Neptune would run somewhat 
as follows: 

A deviation from the predicted course of a planet is due 
to the existence of some hitherto unrecognized force. The 
course of the planet Uranus deviates from its predicted 
course; therefore, its deviation is due to some hitherto un- 
recognized force. 

Now, in each of the foregoing cases, we have a 
conclusion or judgment which is derived from 
earlier ones. And inquiry as to the manner of de- 
rivation, into the grounds whereby we pass from 
one judgment to another should reveal to us the 



260 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

hidden factors of the reasoning process, and should 
clear away whatever of mystery has gathered about 
it. Take the two cases separately. In the case of 
the child and the lion, the necessary first step was 
the thought that the present object, 'Duke', belongs 
to, has the characteristics of, a previously known 
class of objects — 'lions'; and the second necessary 
step was the revival in the child's consciousness of 
one of 'lion's' fear-exciting associates, namely, the 
idea 'dangerous' ; third, the idea 'dangerous' awak- 
ened its natural associates — shrinking, fear, desire 
to keep away, and the like. In the case of the dis- 
covery of Neptune, the astronomers first identified 
the motion of Uranus as an instance of deviation 
from a computed course ; second, the idea 'deviation' 
etc., called up one of its associated ideas, namely, 
'some unrecognized force is operating'. The ques- 
tion, what is that force? and the search for it, easily 
followed. Reasoning proper is thus seen to consist 
of: (1) a judgment, or a series of judgments based 
upon observed resemblances (real or imaginary) 
between present objects and earlier known ones, 
and (2) the revival through association of certain 
of the latter's properties or relationships which are, 
in turn, judged to belong to the object under con- 
sideration. A 'good reasoner' is one who is expert 
in detecting likenesses and differences and who is 
able to recall ideas that are pertinent to the subject 
in hand. 

Reasoned Judgments and Reasoning Distinguished. 
— It may aid our understanding of reasoning, in the 
narrow meaning, to show wherein it differs from 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 261 

the process whereby a given judgment, already 
uttered, is justified, becomes a reasoned judgment. 
Take two simple cases. The astronomers had com- 
puted the course of the planet Uranus on the basis 
of the known attractive forces of other members of 
the solar system. Then it was observed that Uranus 
deviated from its predicted course; next is was sur- 
mised that some unrecognized force was affecting 
the motion of the planet ; the search for the disturb- 
ing factor, and the discovery of Neptune followed. 
The conclusion was reached, as we have seen, on the 
basis of a series of earlier judgments, by a process 
of reasoning. Now to illustrate the steps whereby 
a judgment is grounded, becomes 'reasoned', let us 
suppose that two persons are standing on the shore 
of a lake which is frozen over ; suppose further, that 
one of the two persons is familiar with frozen bodies 
of water and that the other has never seen one and 
knows nothing about them. Suppose that the first 
person remarks, "How thick the ice is !" ; where- 
upon the second asks, "How do you know it is 
thick?" The answer consists in stating the grounds 
of the judgment, thus : thick ice looks thus and so, 
it easily supports a heavy weight, one can't break it 
with a big stone, pounding it with a stick produces 
a given sound, and so on. The next step is — this 
ice has these properties ; therefore, it is thick. The 
difference between a judgment that is reached by a 
course of reasoning and a reasoned judgment is thus 
seen to consist mainly in the difference in the tem- 
poral order of the several steps leading to each. In 
the former case, we advance step by step to a given 



262 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

conclusion; whereas, in the latter, we search out 
the grounds of a judgment after it has been uttered. 

Implicit Reasoning. — It appears from the fore- 
going sketch that the first step in a particular in- 
stance of explicit reasoning is the thought that a 
particular object belongs to a given class of objects 
which is known to possess certain characteristics 
and relationships; further, that the conclusion in 
such reasoning is reached through the associative 
revival of some of the earlier known class of object's 
characteristics and relationships which are then 
linked to the present object. 

Now the same processes are involved, but not all 
of them are definitely present, in implicit reasoning. 
In this case, a present fact, or some feature thereof, 
recalls some earlier known fact, whereupon the 
qualities or behavior of the latter are forthwith at- 
tributed to the former. Sometimes, in this kind of 
reasoning, the basis of the recall, which, as a rule, 
is the similarity between some aspect or aspects of 
the two facts, is unrecognized. Similarity operates, 
in the manner described above (p. 211 ff), to revive 
the thought of the earlier fact, but the similarity is 
not itself separately apprehended. 

Everyday experience afi'ords us abundant illus- 
trations of this form of reasoning, i. e., of conclus- 
ions based immediately on the resemblance between 
a present fact and some other known fact. For in- 
stance, an oculist describes a given case of eye defect 
as myopia because it calls to mind similar cases that 
have received that name. We expect the Oxford 
graduate B. to speak good English because our 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 263 

friend A., an Oxford man, does so; we expect our 
new pair of shoes, purchased at X's store, to wear 
well because an earlier pair purchased there wore 
well. Of course, the conclusion in a given case may 
be wholly unwarranted, either because of the faulty 
form in which our premises are stated, or because 
of their inherent falsity. Nevertheless, this form of 
reasoning is often practically effective; and it is at 
all times satisfactory to a large majority of persons. 
It is commonly regarded a piece of pedantry or im- 
pertinence to inquire too closely into the grounds 
of a fellow-man's judgments, opinions, beliefs, even 
when they are evidently based upon shadowy anal- 
ogies. 

Figures of speech, particularly personifications, 
similes, metaphors, afford other illustrations of im- 
plicit reasoning. The poet describes the sea as 
'angry' because something in its appearance reminds 
him of the behavior of an enraged man. The ground 
of such descriptive terms as 'foxy', 'pachyderma- 
tous', 'princely', and the like, when applied to hu- 
man conduct, is obviously a similarity in the prop- 
erties of objects that are usually far apart in our 
thinking. Again, the analogical basis is evident in 
our characterization of a given person's mind as 
acute, keen; his speech as cackling or growling, or 
his character as jelly-like or as standing four-square 
to every wind that blows. 

If we may use the term reasoning in a very broad mean- 
ing, we may distinguish a third form — that, namely, in • 
which conclusions, or judgments, are uttered without the dis- 
tinct apprehension of any ground, but solely on the basis of 



264 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mental habits of thinking of given things after thinking of 
other given things. This form of reasoning is meant M^hen 
it is said that memories or even perceptions involve reason- 
ing, that if we make explicit the grounds of either a per- 
ception or a memory w^e shall have good and true cases of 
reasoning. For instance, the perception 'oranges', as one 
looks at a fruit dealer's w^indow display, involves reasoning 
in the sense that on the basis solely of the sensory expe- 
riences of patches of orange color of a given size and form, 
one names the objects 'oranges'. The implied steps are, 
oranges are objects of a given size and color; the present 
objects are like oranges in these respects; therefore, they are 
oranges. 

Further, if this extension of reasoning's meaning is made, 
then it is true, as is often remarked, that it is involved in 
even the earliest and simplest cognitive processes. Even 
the earliest perceptions of infancy may then be regarded as 
cases of implicit reasoning; that is, if we search for the 
grounds of these perceptions we shall find among the stored 
up results of the infant's earlier experiences certain factors 
which, if brought to light and clearly expressed, would give 
such perceptions the character of reasoned judgments. To 
illustrate: reasoning is implicit in the half articulate baby's 
cry, 'boo', or other sound, which means 'dog' or 'barking-dog- 
out-there'. The grounds, or warrant for the cry and its 
meaning, if made explicit, would run as follows : 

Dogs make barking sounds. 

This present sound is one of barking; 

Therefore, it is made by a dog. 

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning Distinguished. 
— The distinction usually drawn between inductive 
and deductive reasoning is logical rather than psy- 
chological. From the former point of view, induc- 
tive reasoning is the process of passing from par- 
ticular facts or instances to general principles or 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 265 

laws, while deductive reasoning consists in applying 
general principles or laws to particular facts. 

A comparison of induction and deduction, from 
the point of view of psychology, shows the same 
activities in both, namely, selective attention, com- 
parison, associative revival, and mental habit. Thus 
in inductive reasoning one first observes that objects 
of the same class or kind, or that possess in common 
certain attributes or qualities or modes of behavior, 
possess also, in common, certain other attributes, 
qualities, or modes of behavior; second, one con- 
cludes on the basis of a number of these observa- 
tions that the observed concomitance of class of ob- 
ject and attribute, or of attribute and attribute, holds 
uniformly. For instance, a child observes that cer- 
tain wooden things — bits of wood, blocks, wooden 
boats, limbs of trees, boards — float in water, and 
concludes therefrom that all wooden things will do 
likewise. Or, again, he observes that dogs that have 
broad chests, thick necks, and protruding under- 
jaws, are also unsociable, unfriendly, and so unde- 
sirable pets; and on the basis of a number of such 
observations, he forms the habit of thinking that 
dogs that possess these physical attributes are also 
unsociable, sullen in manner, undesirable pets. In 
brief, the essential steps in these and similar cases 
of inductive reasoning are; (1) attention to some 
particular property or properties of a given object; 
(2) the observation that the property belongs also 
to other similar objects; (3) the habit of thinking 
of the property in connection with the thought of 
those objects. 



266 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Deductive reasoning shows the same mental activ- 
ities. One first observes that a particular object 
resembles in some respect an earlier known class of 
objects and belongs thereto; next one recalls the at- 
tributes that have been associated with the thought 
of the class and affirms that they belong to the pres- 
ent object. For instance, a child first observes that 
certain of his toys are wooden; then, recalling that 
wooden things float in water, judges that his wooden 
toys will also float in water. 

Thoughts' Vehicles. — In the section on 'Image 
and Idea', (p. 143 f.) it was said that it is not neces- 
sary to have an image of a thing in order to think of, 
or mean it ; it is sufficient to have its name or label, 
or any kind of sign whereby we may designate it. 
We saw, moreover, that we are able to think of, or 
mean, many things which we cannot perceive or 
image. For example, we can think of velocity, 
equality, acceleration, time, space, a plane figure of 
a hundred sides, a round-square, but we cannot form 
images of them. 

It may be observed next that any item or content 
of consciousness may serve as the vehicle of our 
thought of any particular thing or group of things, 
or of judgments concerning them. Thus in the 
thought, "The General was present," the idea or 
thought of the General's presence may be carried 
by any one of a number of conscious processes ; for 
example, by the sight, sound, or 'feeling' of the 
words, 'General was present', by an image of some 
particular General, by a mental picture of a stately 
figure seen standing, walking, or riding; by the 



THOUGHT AND THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 267 

image either of a peculiarly shaped hat, or of the 
rattle of spurs, or of a commanding voice, or of 
firmly set jaws ; or even a General-like thrill of dig- 
nity, or of devotion to duty, or of the sense of re- 
sponsibility, may serve as the vehicle of such a 
thought. 

No doubt, most meanings are carried by images 
either of the things meant or by images of the signs 
and words that name and describe them, or by sen- 
sations from the speech organs. But they may be 
carried also by means of various complexes of un- 
localized organic sensations. Take, for illustration 
of the last mentioned means, Washburn's original 
suggestion as to the probable origin of the conscious- 
ness of contradiction or opposition as expressed by 
the conjunction 'but', ''The consciousness of 'but'," 
Washburn writes, in substance, "is a remnant of re- 
motely ancestral motor attitudes, and it resists anal- 
ysis now because of its vestigial nature. Take, for 
example, the sense of contradiction between two 
ideas when we say, 'I should like to do so and so, hut 
— here is an objection'. If we trace this back what 
can it have been originally but the experience of 
primitive organisms called upon by simultaneous 
stimuli to make two incompatible reactions at once, 
and what can that experience have been but a cer- 
tain suspended, baffled motor attitude?" ^ In other 
words, the idea or feeling of 'but' must have arisen 
originally when some 'primitive organism' desired 
two incompatible 'goods' ; when, for instance, some 
hungry, savage hunter swayed between the desire 



Journal of PMl. Psych. Sci. Methods, vol. Ill, p. 63. 



268 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to eat his dog and the thought of the dog's help in 
future hunting excursions. The point is that the 
'suspended, baffled motor attitude' which, in the case 
supposed, constitutes the consciousness of contradic- 
tion, of incompatibility between two desired courses 
of action, is a complex of kinsesthetic, and possibly 
other organic, sensations ; and that these sensations 
of the primitive organism mean contradiction, oppo- 
sition. 

Now, while it seems probable that sensations of this kind 
constitute an important, perhaps the chief, factor in the 
primitive organism's sense of contradiction, it is in place to 
add that they are also an important factor in the higher 
organism's — e. g., in a civilised man's — sense of contradic- 
tion. Accordingly, Titchener, commenting upon the passage 
just quoted from Washburn, humorously observes that inas- 
much as the sense of contradiction is for him composed partly 
of the feeling of the suspended motor attitude, an organism 
need not be more primitive than a professor of psychology 
in an American university to experience it. 

In the present chapter we first studied the general 
nature of thinking; second, we endeavored to de- 
scribe the mental activities involved in ideation, or 
conception, judgment, and reasoning, the simpler, 
the more fundamental forms of thinking. In the 
next chapter we shall study comparison, analysis, 
and generalization, thought processes that involve 
the simpler forms described in the present chapter. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE THOUGHT-PROCESSES (CONTINUED) 

Comparison: Conditions.— "Thinking/ Sully writes, 
'has in a special manner, to do with the detection of 
similarity and dissimilarity, or difference." The 
special form of thought which has to do with the 
discovery of likenesses and differences is called 
Comparison, which may be defined as the consider- 
ation of two or more objects in order to discover 
wherein they are alike and wherein they differ. Or, 
to give Stout's fuller definition: 

"By deliberate comparison', he writes, 'I mean a mental 
confronting of the two objects, and a transition of attention 
from the one to the other, so as to discover some respect in 
which similar things differ in spite of their similarity, or in 
which different things agree in spite of their diversity, and 
also a fixing of the precise nature of this agreement or 
difference." ^ 

Two points of this definition require brief notice : 
first, 'deliberate comparison' is to be distinguished 
from the mere awareness of difference or likeness 
which arises 'involuntarily'. The former is pur- 
posive, while the latter is purposeless. In the sec- 
ond place, comparison involves not only the search 
for differences and likenesses among objects, but 
also a determination of the nature of the differences 
or likenesses themselves. Thus, in the comparison 



^A Manual of Psychology, 1899, p. 452. 
(269) 



270 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of the tones of musical instruments, we not only 
inquire whether the tones are alike or different, but 
we also inquire as to the precise nature of the dis- 
covered likeness or difference. 

Conditions. — The conditions which facilitate the 
process of discovering likenesses and differences 
may be grouped as either objective, those which be- 
long to the nature of the objects compared, or sub- 
jective, those which belong to the nature of the indi- 
vidual mind which makes the comparison; we shall 
give a few examples of each class. 

One objective condition is that the objects to be 
compared, whether objects of sense or mental phe- 
nomena, shall have one or more features in common. 
Thus one may compare the jingle of sleighbells and 
the ringing of a dinner bell, but it probably never 
occurs to any of us to compare the ringing of bells 
with the taste of olives. We may also compare one 
emotion with another, but we do not compare emo- 
tions with our visual images. Again, we may com- 
pare two Algebra text-books with respect to their 
precision and accuracy, but we do not compare an 
Algebra text with one on botany. The existence of 
a common ground occupied by the objects to be com- 
pared then is the first condition of a comparison 
occurring at all; otherwise there is no motive or 
reason for it. (2) A second condition is that the 
objects must be known or believed to be different. 
We do not compare two pencils which we believe or 
know to be precisely alike. If we render any judg- 
ment at all regarding them it is that they are alike 
and there the matter ends. In brief, comparison 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 271 

presupposes both a recognized similarity and a recog- 
nized difference between the objects compared. 

Among the subjective conditions of comparison 
(in addition to the general purpose, already men- 
tioned) should be named, first, the possession of 
clear and accurate images and ideas of the objects 
to be compared; and this, in the case of sense- 
objects, depends in the first place upon the proper 
functioning of the sense-organs. Obviously the 
color-blind person cannot discover in a landscape as 
many colors for comparison as a person whose vision 
is normal; nor can a person whose hearing is dull 
in a given direction — say for musical tones — have 
the materials for comparison in that field. So also 
the comparison of ideas, e. g., the meanings of two 
words like 'envy' and 'jealousy' or 'pride' and 'van- 
ity', depends upon the possession of clear and dis- 
tinct ideas of the meanings themselves. A second 
subjective condition is the ability to revive and to 
keep focal in consciousness ideas or images of the 
objects compared. A little child fails in his com- 
parison of objects, even as simple as two apples, 
partly because he cannot keep in mind an image of 
the features of the one while he examines the other. 

In discussing a related topic, Stout observes that "the 
absence of comparison in animals, in all but its most vague 
and rudimentary form, [is due] to the absence or to the ex- 
tremely imperfect development of ideational activity in gen- 
eral," i. e., to the inability to image or think of experiences 
after they have passed.' 



Manual of Psychology^ p. 456. 



272 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

It may be of interest to note in passing that Stout's view- 
in regard to comparison in animals is in striking contrast 
with that held by the animal psychologists of a generation 
ago. They would have felt little hesitancy in ascribing the 
power of comparison to very many of the lower animals, 
even to the honey-bee that helped King Solomon solve the 
puzzle of the real and artificial clover blossoms. At the 
present time, however, the more careful students of animal 
behavior agree with Stout that comparison in animals, in all 
but its most vague and rudimentary form, is absent. Forms 
of animal behavior, which were formerly thought to depend 
upon the results of comparison, are now seen to be due lo 
either instinctive tendencies or to a simple association be- 
tween given stimuli and certain acquired modes of respond- 
ing thereto. Thus the difference in the actions of a cat when 
it pounces upon a mouse on one occasion and runs from a 
strange dog on another, is not due to a process of comparison, 
but to inborn tendencies confirmed by experience. Nor is it 
correct to say that Morgan's now famous chickens 'learned to 
discriminate' between nice edible worms and the nasty cinna- 
bar caterpillars.^ There was nothing in the chickens' be- 
havior, as doubtless Morgan himself would admit, which 
would warrant one in ascribing the power of comparison to 
them. 'The discriminating by sight between the two objects', 
and the association of the appearance or sight of the cater- 
pillar with an unpleasant taste or odor and that of the edible 
worms with pleasant gustatory results, is sufficient to account 
for the chickens' quickness to seize the edible worms in the 
one case and their aversion to cinnabar caterpillars in the 
other. In general it may be said that no lower animal ever 
searches for diff"erences and likenesses per se : and that ani- 
mal behavior is controlled either by inherited tendencies or 
by the tendencies acquired in the course of a series of pleas- 
ant or unpleasant experiences, and never by thought. 

Discrimination. — We have just stated the general 
nature and conditions of Comparison. We shall now 



^ An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 1902, Chap. XII. 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 273 

study a little further that form of comparison, called 
Discrimination. 

Discrimination may be defined as the comparison 
of two or more objects in order to discover wherein 
they differ. Thus conceived, discrimination is dis- 
tinguished from differentiation (which, as we have 
seen, is the emergence in the course of mental devel- 
opment of an increasing variety of mental expe- 
riences) mainly by the fact that differentiation is, 
in large measure, spontaneous, involuntary, the re- 
sult of mere inner growth processes, while discrim- 
ination, as a thought process, involves a search for 
differences. For example, in the course of the nor- 
mal development of the sense of hearing, the child 
is enabled to distinguish the tones of two musical 
instruments, the tones are said, to become differen- 
tiated in his experience; but attention to the tones 
of the two instruments in order to discover their 
differences, the discriminative comparison of them, 
involves a purpose and so implies a higher stage of 
mental development than the mere consciousness 
that they are different. 

The difference between differentiation and dis- 
crimination may be further emphasized by remark- 
ing that to experience two different sensations, say 
of taste or temperature, is one thing; to attend to 
the difference itself, is an altogether different thing. 
Thus when first a warm, then a cold object touches 
a baby's skin, two different sensations arise in the 
baby's consciousness ; but at first there is no idea or 
thought of the difference as such ; much less is there 
reflection, as there may be in the case of an older 



274 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

person, about the nature of the difference. Discrim- 
ination involves the 'focusing of attention' on the 
difference itself and clearly belongs to a more ad- 
vanced stage of mental development. 

Individual Differences in Discrimination. — In our 
enumeration of the subjective conditions of compar- 
ison, we have already referred to the obvious fact 
that in the field of our sensory experiences compar- 
ison depends primarily upon the normal functioning 
of the sense-organs ; if this is lacking the necessary 
ground for the detection of either differences or 
likenesses is wanting. It was said also that other 
necessary conditions of comparison are, (1) the for- 
mation of clear, vivid images or ideas of the sub- 
jects of comparison; and (2) the ability to retain 
the images or ideas thereof focal in consciousness 
while they are being compared. In addition to these 
general conditions of comparison we may now note 
certain special conditions of discrimination, which 
are, at the same time, the grounds of the individual 
differences referred to in James' observation that 
some men 'have sharper senses than others, and that 
some have acuter minds and are able to see two 
shades of meaning where the majority see but one.' 
First, may be mentioned the general fact that some 
persons are naturally keenly alive to distinctions, 
as such; and that others are dull to them, they 
seem to lack the sense of difference. "Some per- 
sons," as Sully remarks, "are struck more by a like- 
ness, others by a difference." 

A second special ground of difference in the dis- 
criminating power of individuals is found in the 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 275 

varying sorts and amounts of exercise which this 
function has received. It is well known that exercise 
or practice sharpens the wits for distinctions which 
otherwise are overlooked. A person who is able to 
draw the sharpest lines within the field of his own 
special interests and activities, whether practical 
or theoretical, is blind to distinctions which lie out- 
side his own sphere. The skilled oculist, for ex- 
ample, sees a multitude of differences, which for the 
layman are wholly non-existent, between the phys- 
ical conditions and functioning of a normal and an 
abnormal eye. But let the oculist and a breeder of 
sheep drive through a sheep-raising country and the 
latter will be able to point out many things about 
sheep which entirely escape the attention of the 
oculist. And so difference in education or exercise 
accounts in part for the variations among individ- 
uals in respect to their discriminating power. The 
chemist, the lawyer, the sculptor, the merchant, in 
the course of their education, acquire skill in noting 
numerous distinctions within their own special fields 
to which the outsider is deaf and blind. 

A third special ground of individual differences 
in the discriminating power, in the ability to make 
fine distinctions, depends, Locke suggests, upon the 
presence or absence of a certain poise, steadiness, 
and calmness of temper, on the possession or lack 
of what may be called the judicial temperament, and 
the mental habits of carefulness which some per- 
sons, whose temperaments are hasty and precipitate, 
are unable to acquire. 



276 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

A fourth ground of the superiority of one indi- 
vidual over another in marking distinctions is the 
possession of a richer vocabulary of distinction 
naming words, which serve both to sharpen one's 
power of discrimination and to fix distinctions after 
they are once perceived. Thus, it has been shown 
experimentally that a person who has a well-devel- 
oped color vocabulary, i. e., who knows the names of 
a great variety of tints and shades of color is able to 
distinguish a larger number of colors than a person, 
a child, e. g., whose vocabulary is limited. Similarly, 
in the other sense departments, the ability to dis- 
criminate varieties of sense experience is dependent 
in a marked degree upon the richness or poverty of 
one's vocabulary. Witness, for example, the great 
variety of organic sensations, which may become 
obtrusively real after we once know their names, 
but which for most persons, fortunately perhaps, 
are simply non-existent. In a word, wherever our 
interests, theoretical or practical, require us to make 
distinctions whether of sensations, feelings, emo- 
tions, images, ideas, impulses or purposes, the pos- 
session of a wealth of distinction conveying words is 
a great sharpener of the wits. 

Analysis as a Thought-Process. — For the little 
child of three or four, the world of what we call real 
things consists of a multitude of simple units or 
wholes without distinction of parts. His toy wagon 
is something to draw after him ; he knows nothing 
of tongue, bed, axles, coupling-pole, four wheels, 
nuts and bolts, as parts of the wagon; a chair is 
something to sit on, not a piece of furniture con- 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 277 

sisting of seat, back, legs, and rungs ; a tree to him 
is a unit, and the distinctions which an older child 
makes of root, trunk, branches, bark and leaves, 
are for him simply non-existent ; a doll is something 
to dress and put to bed; a dog, something that runs 
and barks ; a watch, something that ticks ; and so 
on with respect to all other things in his environ- 
ment. The notion that they are made up of parts 
has not entered his mind; and of course, analysis 
is entirely foreign to his way of thinking of the 
things about him. 

But in the course of experience with wholes or 
units, which at first make up the child's world, par- 
ticularly as his stock of words increases, he comes 
to regard these units as consisting of distinguishable 
parts or features; he learns that the simple things 
are really compounds. This process has its begin- 
ning very early in childhood, not, to be sure, as a 
process of conscious analysis, but rather in the 
child's inborn tendency to select for consideration 
certain features of the objects about him and to 
neglect the others. Thus the color of his toys, the 
'scratch' of his pet kitten, the bark of the dog, the 
'hurt' feature of the hot stove, the various prop- 
erties of articles of food, are examples of the numer- 
ous special features of objects to which he naturally 
attends. And, as was said just now, the acquisition 
of language carries with it a multitude of distinc- 
tions of parts within the various units of his en- 
vironment. 

Analysis, which Baldwin's Dictionary defines as 
'the mental function which proceeds by the progres- 



278 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sive discrimination of the parts or aspects of any 
kind of whole', differs from the easy, natural un- 
avoidable analysis of early childhood mainly in the 
fact that it is always under the guidance of some 
purpose; as when, for example, the student of biol- 
ogy undertakes the enumeration of the features and 
parts of a strange plant or animal in order to ascer- 
tain wherein it is like and wherein different from 
those already known; or when a politician makes a 
careful analysis of what he calls 'the political situ- 
ation' in order to ascertain the number and nature 
of the influences which are friendly or unfriendly to 
his cause. Again, for further illustration of anal- 
ysis as a thought-process, suppose that a man sets 
out with the general purpose to build a house. {;5up- 
pose, further, that he is inexperienced in this sort of 
thing. He does not know how to proceed. He stands 
helpless in the face of his problem. He knows in a 
general way what he wishes to do, but he does not 
know how to start. Then some one tells him that 
he should first have pretty definite ideas as to the 
size, cost, general appearance and arrangement of 
the house, and that he should then plan the house, 
one feature at a time — the foundation walls, out- 
side walls, whether of brick, stone, or wood, the 
character of the roof, inside finish, method of heat- 
ing, plumbing, decorating, doors, windows, hard- 
ware, and so on. His general problem is thus broken 
up into a number of special problems. He is then 
able, within the limitations of his general plan, to 
think of each feature and to reach a decision con- 
cerning it. So with respect to the various problems. 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 279 

whether theoretical or practical, which we meet 
from day to day: we are forced to analyze them in 
order to proceed at all. In other words, analysis 
as a thought-process, presupposes a difficulty to be 
solved; it is purposive, and is thus readily distin- 
guished from the reflex attention which a child may 
give to the several features of an object of interest, 
say a doll. As the child looks at the doll she may in 
turn attend to the color of the doll's eyes, the wavy, 
golden hair, the tiny feet, the pearly teeth, and so 
on through the list of features which may catch her 
attention. But we should not call this analysis; it 
lacks the essential characteristic of that process, 
namely, the search for the several parts of which an 
object is believed to consist. 

The Conditions of Analysis. — The subjective con- 
ditions of analysis are, first, the thought that a given 
object, event, or situation is compound and not 
simple; second, a definite purpose to analyze it; 
and third, previous knowledge of the nature of its 
separate parts. The first two conditions require no 
further explanation. They are simply, first, the 
idea that a given object of contemplation is presum- 
ably a compound; and second, the determination to 
search out its factors. In reference to the third 
condition — the necessity of having known previously 
a compound's several parts — James lays down the 
principle that, "any total impression made on the 
mind must be unanalyzable, whose elements are 
never experienced apart." This means that in order 
to analyze out the several elements, properties, or 
aspects of a complex situation, object, or event, one 



280 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

must have formerly experienced the elements or 
properties either isolatedly or in some other relation 
or combination than the present one. Thus a per- 
son who is unacquainted with the tastes of the 
essences of peppermint, wintergreen, and sassafras 
would get from a mixture of these substances an 
unknown single taste, 'a particular integral impres- 
sion', the ingredients would not be recognized, and 
an attempted analysis would fail. "But," to quote 
James' second principle regarding the process of 
analysis, "if any single quality or constituent of such 
an object, say the taste of peppermint, 'have pre- 
viously been known by us isolatedly, or have in any 
other manner already become an object of separate 
acquaintance on our part, so that we have an image 
of it, distinct or vague, in our mind, disconnected 
with the other two ingredients — [essence of sassa- 
fras and essence of wintergreen] then that con- 
stituent [essence of peppermint] may be analyzed 
out from the total impression." We must first be 
able to image or think of the element or feature 
which we seek to discover in the compound, and 
only such elements as we are acquainted with, and 
can image or think of separately, can be discrim- 
inated within a total sense impression. James cites 
in further illustration of this principle the familiar 
fact that if one is looking for an object in a room, 
say for a book in a library .... "one detects 
it the more readily if one carries in one's mind a 
distinct image of its appearance." Of like purport 
is the observation that the leader of an orchestra is 
able to pick out the tones of the various instruments 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 281 

thereof, because he is already familiar with them as 
separate tones. 

It not infrequently happens, after one has dis- 
covered all the known elements in a compound, that 
other features of the total experience are distinctly 
felt as present although they are not recognized ; they 
are simply known to exist but cannot be identified 
and named. For example, if one tastes a food or med- 
icine which contains, among other ingredients, Cay- 
enne pepper, and if one has never experienced the 
peculiar pungency of the latter, then analysis of the 
total taste experience yields a new factor — whether 
simple or complex one cannot say — which in accord- 
ance with the principle stated above, one fails to 
identify and of which one is unable to give a com- 
plete account. 

A further and special condition of analysis is that 
there shall be a native capacity for, and interest in 
this mode of thinking. Every normal mind pos- 
sesses some power of analysis, as it does of discrim- 
ination which underlies the analytic process, and 
perhaps some interest in it. But the capacity varies 
greatly from individual to individual. Moreover, 
some persons seem to have a native bent for the 
analytic method of knowing the world, while others 
are natively more interested in similarities and like- 
nesses ; they look upon analysis as dull and profitless 
business. 

Generalization. — Almost a third of a century ago 
(Mind, IX, 1884), James taught the fundamentally 
important lesson that, as conscious processes, there 
is no difference between a so-called universal, or 



282 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

general, idea and an individual idea ; that as psychic 
states, they do not differ except in the fact that the 
former is accompanied by the consciousness that it 
refers to, or means, a group, or class of objects, 
whereas the individual idea is felt to mean, or refer 
to, an individual object. The following quotation 
contains his teaching in outline: 

"Both concept [idea] and image, qua subjective [i. e., as 
segments of the stream of consciousness] are singular and 
particular. Both are moments of the stream which come and 
in an instant are no more. The word universality [gener- 
ality] has no meaning as applied to their psychic body or 

structure It only has a meaning when applied 

to their use, import, or reference to the kind of object they 
may reveal. The representation, as such, of the universal 
object is as particular as that of an object about which we 
know so little that the interjection "Ha" is all it can evoke 
from us in the way of speech." ^ 

But, apparently, the lesson which James taught 
was not well learned, and was soon forgotten. Re- 
cently, Titchener taught the lesson over, simplified 
it somewhat, and gave it an emphasis which ought 
to fix it as our guide in all our future study of the 
thought processes. He writes : 

"It is no more correct to speak, in psychology, of ... . 
a general idea, than it would be to speak of a general sen- 
sation. What is general is not the idea, the process in con- 
sciousness, but the logical meaning of which that process is 
the vehicle." ^ 



-^Principles of Psycliology, Vol. I, p. 479. Mind, O. S., IX, 1884, 
18 f. The same teaching is implicit in Bradley's Principles of 
Logic, 1883. 

^Experimental Psychology of the Thought Processes, 1909, p. 15. 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 283 

Stated with a slightly different emphasis, the two 
points of these quotations are, first, that in the field 
of actual mental experience there is no such thing 
as a 'general' idea ; as mental processes, every idea 
(image) is particular; and second, that certain of 
our conscious processes, images, e. g., mean groups 
or classes of objects which possess characteristic 
attributes or properties. We can think of, mean, 
trees, knives, clocks, as groups, and we can render 
judgments regarding them which are true of all 
their members. These meanings, or thoughts of, 
groups or classes of objects having common features 
are called 'generalizations', or 'general ideas', or 
'general notions', or 'concepts' ; but, to repeat, these 
terms one and all express meanings; they do not 
name special kinds of mental states. 

Now, there are two questions of psychological 
interest regarding the process of Generalization as 
thus conceived : first, how do we come into posses- 
sion of our general meanings ; second, what sorts 
of conscious processes serve as their vehicles. In 
answer to the former question we may observe first 
that thoughts of classes of objects, such as those 
named in the preceding paragraph, first appear nat- 
urally in the course of our learning the language of 
our elders. We hear them apply the names — 'tree', 
'knife', 'clock', to certain objects, and we imitatively 
use the same words to designate the same things. 
Then it is an easy step from using a given sign to 
mean a given individual object to using the same 
sign to mean any or all objects which resemble the 
first. That these are the early steps in the acquire- 



284 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ment of general meanings, or so-called 'general 
ideas', is clearly shown by observation of the lan- 
guage of little children, particularly the mistakes 
which they make at first. For example, a child uses 
a given name to refer to the house cat ; then later he 
applies the same name to all cats ; later still he calls 
tigers, leopards, lions by the same name which he 
first used to name his pet. Or again, he hears a 
watch called a 'tick-tock', which name he soon gives 
to a clock, because it, too, has the ticking sound; 
then later, he may call a calendar or a thermometer 
tick-tocks, possibly because their graduated surfaces 
resemble roughly the face of a time-piece. And his 
later education, which clears up these errors, con- 
sists in getting him to see that the similarities which 
he first noticed are unimportant, that they do not 
relate to the essential properties of the objects class- 
ified, and therefore cannot be the true grounds of 
classification. The procedure in this case is pre- 
cisely like that followed in teaching the student that 
the mere fact that a whale lives in water is no war- 
rant for calling it a fish, or when he is taught that a 
sea anemone is an animal despite the fact that it 
lacks the power of locomotion, which he first be- 
lieved to be characteristic of all animals. Indeed, 
our entire education is, in an important respect, a 
process of correcting our first groupings and classi- 
fications, which in many instances, are based upon 
similarities that are superficial and unessential. 

By a similar process of 'automatic assimilation', 
as Sully calls it, the child gets his first groupings of 
objects or actions as pretty or ugly, as true or false, 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 285 

as fair or unfair, good or bad, and so on. He hears 
his associates name certain things pretty or ugly, 
fair or unfair, good or bad, and he spontaneously 
applies the same names to objects and actions which 
resemble in some respects the things which he has 
heard others describe by these words. Of course, 
the child makes the same sort of mistakes in using 
the more abstract terms that he made in using the 
more concrete; and the task of education in the 
latter case, is the same as in the former. 

Thus far we have spoken only of generalization 
which requires little effort, which consists in the 
simple process of applying the same name to objects 
which resemble one another. A distinctly higher 
stage of this form of thinking is reached when a 
child begins consciously to compare objects, events, 
situations, in order to determine their likenesses and 
differences, and when he begins to make ascertained 
differences and likenesses the basis of his classifica- 
tions. Moreover, he may at this later stage under- 
take the revision of his earlier general meanings, 
he inquires into their grounds. He asks, why the 
giant oak and the patch of moss on its trunk are 
both called plants, why are some words called adjec- 
tives and others adverbs, why is one piece of con- 
duct called patriotic and another treasonable. And 
all through life he is interested more or less in class- 
ifying, defining more sharply, and in fixing his gen- 
eral meanings. 

The ansM^er to the second question mentioned 
above, namely, what is the character of the mental 
processes which serve as the vehicles of general- 



286 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

izations, has been indicated already in the topic — 
Thoughts' Vehicles', (p. 266 ff.) 

The Beginnings of Thought. — We are already fa- 
miliar with the general fact that even in the earliest 
stages of an individual's mental development, the 
various mental activities are so intricately inter- 
woven, and the development of each one so depends 
upon and involves the development of others, that 
the date of the first appearance of any particular 
one cannot be definitely ascertained. So we may say 
of the thought processes in particular that the at- 
tempt to isolate them from the totality of an indi- 
vidual's early experience and to lay one's finger on 
their earliest forms will, for the general reason just 
mentioned, always end in failure. 

But in order to give any account of mental devel- 
opment at all, we have to take one aspect or fea- 
ture of the developmental process at a time ; we have 
to break up into parts what is in reality an organic 
whole, and consider the evolution of the various in- 
dividual mental functions as if they existed in isola- 
tion. So our inquiry concerning the beginnings of 
the thought processes is merely an effort, first, to 
ascertain the character of their rudimentary forms ; 
second, to determine the conditions under which they 
become distinguishable features of consciousness. 

There has been a good deal of discussion of the 
question — does consciousness always involve a 
thought element? Otherwise stated, is there such a 
thing as a 'thoughtless' mental experience? More 
concretely, may we suppose that some of the lower 



THE THOUGHT PROCESSES 287 

forms of animal life, say a caterpillar or an oyster, 
experience sensations of pressure or warmth as 
bare, disconnected bits of consciousness, as pure 
sensations ? or does the mere existence of such proc- 
esses involve thought? To these questions the most 
natural answer is that the consciousness of many of 
the lower animals, and that also of the higher ani- 
mals, at the outset, is thoughtless. For example, 
it is highly probable that at first a baby's mental 
life consists of a mass of vague, undifferentiated, 
unrecognized, and unacknowledged sensations and 
feelings. It is likely that bare sensations of the first 
baths, the first tastes, the first movements of arms 
and legs occur without involving as much thought 
as is expressed in an inarticulate Ah ! or Ouch ! At 
this stage of development the baby's mental life, so 
we may suppose, consists of a series of sensation, 
or of sensation and feeling, complexes which appear 
one by one, then fade away. Each one, so far as the 
experiencing subject is concerned, is an entirely new 
experience; it awakens no memories of former 
states ; when it dies, it leaves absolutely no con- 
scious trace of its having been. 

Now, let us suppose, that in due time, a trace of 
these first sensations and feelings lingers in our 
imaginary baby's mind, and that the occurrence of 
later pulses of sensation and feeling is accompanied 
by a dim feeling either of familiarity or of strange- 
ness; then the consciousness of the moment would 
include either the thought 'this is like', or 'this is 
different from, an earlier thing.' Now thought, as 
a distinctive feature of consciousness, begins in these 



288 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

first dim, faint awarenesses of likeness or differ- 
ence; and all of the similarities and distinctions 
which we are able to discover in our later life trace 
back to these two different ways of responding to 
the various objects of our babyhood environment. 

The student will understand, of course, that any account of 
the earliest forms of mental experience is, in large part, an 
imaginary affair. No one is able to recall his first sensa- 
tions, feelings, thoughts ; and our attempt to picture the 
mental life of a baby professes to be only a statement of 
what probably occurs in these early hours and days which 
are, in fact, sealed books to us all. 

The student should also understand that statements in 
regard to the mental life of the lower animals are speculative 
in nature. It is, however, generally agreed that it is highly 
improbable that the lower animals image or think about their 
experiences; and it is doubtful whether their sensory and 
perceptional processes resemble those of human beings as 
much as most persons nowadays suppose. 



REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Chs. V, X, XI, XII. 

James: Principles of Psychology, vol. I, Chs. XII, XIII, vol. 

II, Ch. XXII. 
Judd: Psychology, Ch. XI. 

Stout: Manual of Psychology, Book IV, Chs. IV, V. 
Sully: The Human Mind, 1892, vol. I, Ch. XL 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§138-145. 
Titchener: Lectures on the Experimental Psychology of the 

Thought-Processes, 1909. 



i 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FEELINGS 

Meaning of the Term Feeling. — The term 'feeling' 
is used in the language of everyday life with a great 
variety of meanings. Thus, to quote a paragraph, 
with slight changes, from Titchener's Primer of 
Psychology : ^ 

" (1) Feeling is used for the perception of touch. We 
say a thing 'feels rough' or 'smooth', 'hard' or 'soft'. 

(2) It is used for certain organic sensations, whether 
they are strongly tinged by affection [i. e., whether they are 
agreeable or disagreeable] or not. Thus we 'feel hungry' 
and 'feel thirsty', although the hunger and thirst may be 
neither strongly pleasant nor strongly unpleasant. 

(3) It is used for some very complicated affective proc- 
esses, for emotions and moods. Thus we 'feel angry' or 
'feel blue'. Anger is an emotion; 'the blues' is a mood." 

(4) Feeling is also used as the equivalent of 'think' 
or 'judge', as when one says, "I feel that so and so 
is true or false, wise or unwise, good or bad, etc." 

(5) Again, in ordinary speech, 'feeling' means an 
attitude of assent, agreement, hearty concurrence, 
as when it is said that a banquet speaker made a 
'feeling response' to a given toast. So also in works 
on psychology, 'feeling' is used in a great variety of 
ways. Thus some psychologists, e. g., Titchener, 
mean by 'feeling' either 'a simple connection of 
affection (pleasantness or unpleasantness) and sen- 



^ Primer of Psychology, 1907, p. 61. 
19 (289) 



290 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

sation', in which affection is the predominant factor ; 
or 'the affective side of our mental life.' Other 
psychologists mean by 'feeling' any mental process; 
feeling and consciousness are used synonymously, 
e. g., by James when he says, in his chapter on The 
Emotions, "the feeling [consciousness] of certain 
bodily changes as they occur is the emotion." Truly, 
as Titchener remarks, " 'Feel' and 'feeling' seem to 
be psychological maids of all work; they can do, in 
the sentence, practically anything that a verb and 
a substantive can be called upon to do." 

In our own present use of the term 'feeling' we 
shall mean the pleasantness or unpleasantness, the 
agreeableness or disagreeableness, which run 
through, and give tone, color, and immediate value 
to our mental experiences. For example, the sight 
of the colors of the rainbow, the sound of a musical 
melody, the taste of certain fruits, the odor of given 
flowers, are usually accompanied by feelings of 
pleasantness; while muddy colors, grating, rasping 
noises, the odor of decaying animal matter, the bit- 
ter taste of quinine, are, as a rule, accompanied 
by feelings of unpleasantness. 

The student's attention is called to two further points in 
respect to the meanings of the terms used in discussing feel- 
ing: (1) the word 'pain' has two meanings in books on 
psychology. Usually it means a sensation; but occasionally 
it is used synonymously with unpleasantness, unpleasure- 
ableness, disagreeableness, and as a convenient substitute 
for these unwieldy terms. (2) The expression 'feeling-tone 
of sensation' refers, in this text, to feeling as an elementary 
psychical process which accompanies sensations. 



THE FEELINGS 291 

The foregoing definition of feeling implies that 
our mental life derives its immediate value and in- 
terest from its affective character. Whether or not 
a given experience shall be deemed interesting or 
valuable depends upon whether or not it "touches 
the feelings." For example, the sight of a beautiful 
bank of flowers, a discord in music, the fragrance of 
apple-blossoms, the foul odors of bad drainage, 
sweet and bitter tastes, ideas of good or ill fortune, 
all owe whatever of value they may have for our 
present consciousness to the fact that they are ac- 
companied by feelings of pleasantness or unpleasant- 
ness. The language of everyday life bears witness to 
the fact that our immediate sense of the value of an 
experience originates in the feelings. Thus, to speak 
of a certain person as apathetic or blase, in the 
presence of natural scenery which ordinarily fills 
others with the keenest delight ; or of a given school 
boy as sated with school work; or of a hardened 
criminal's indifference as to his fate ; of the growing 
recklessness of an administrator of a public trust, 
is another way of saying that the scenery, the school 
studies, the gallov\^s, the ideas of public service, no 
longer elicit their usual feeling responses. If a sen- 
sation or idea is accompanied by a feeling, it has a 
present value for the consciousness; if it is not, it 
has none. 

The Number of Kinds of Feeling. — The question 
of the number of kinds of feeling has been much in 
debate in recent years. In the main, the discussion 
has centered about 'the tridimensional theory of 



292 



ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 




feeling,' proposed by the German psychologist, 
Wundt ; and it will be sufficient for our present pur- 
poses to indicate, (1) the chief 
features of that theory, (2) 
the principal arguments that 
have been urged against it. 

Wundt teaches that there are 
in all six distinct classes of feel- 
ing, namely, pleasantness and 
unpleasantness, excitement and 
depression, tension and relaxa- 
tion ; also that these six elemen- 
tary forms or groups of feeling 
may be arranged in pairs of op- 
posites, forming three series, 
and that each series comprises 
a vast number of distinct feel- 
ing experiences. The accompanying diagram (Fig. 
34) represents the relation in which Wundt's six 
groups of feelings stand to their opposites. 

A further characteristic of Wundt's theory is 
that any actual feeling may belong to all three 
series, or it may belong to only two, or even to only 
one. For example, a noise, say that of a fire-engine 
dashing along the street, may be accompanied, in a 
given instance, by a certain pleasantness or unpleas- 
antness, by a more or less marked feeling of strain 
or relaxation, and also by a feeling of either excite- 
ment or depression. Another sound, say the tones 
of a distant bell, may awaken, in a given case, feel- 
ings either of pleasantness or unpleasantness and of 
either tension or relaxation, but nothing that could 



r. unp. d. 

Fig. 34. Diagram 
representing Wundt's 
three dimensions of 
feeling. 



THE FEELINGS 293 

be described as excitement or depression. In still 
a third instance, we may suppose that the feeling 
experienced, that aroused by a musical chord, e. g., 
belongs only to the pleasantness — unpleasantness 
series ; the experience is pleasant or unpleasant, but 
it contains no traces of excitement or depression, of 
strain or relaxation. 

Now it should be said at once that nearly all psy- 
chologists agree in calling pleasantness and unpleas- 
antness feelings (or affections or affective expe- 
riences), and that the discussion concerning the 
number of kinds of feeling centers chiefly about the 
question — should the consciousnesses called 'strain', 
'relaxation', 'excitement', 'depression', be classed as 
feelings or as sensations ? As we have seen already 
in our outline of his tridimensional theory, Wundt 
classes them among the feelings, alongside pleasant- 
ness and unpleasantness. Titchener, on the other 
hand, after a careful examination of Wundt's teach- 
ing, reaches the conclusion that the groups of expe- 
riences w^hich Wundt and others call feelings of 
excitement and depression, and feelings of strain 
and relaxation are really sensations from the 
muscles, tendons, joints, skin, organs of circulation 
and respiration, etc., w^hich are at times closely 
blended with the feelings of pleasantness and un- 
pleasantness.^ For example, if one is expecting a 
present on a certain mail delivery, one awaits the 
postman's arrival with pleasure, but alongside the 
pleasure there may exist, as a result of changes in 



^Elementary Psych, of Feeling and Attention. Lecture IV 
125 fE. 



294 • ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

breathing, heartbeat, the excitation or inhibition of 
bodily movements and the like, sensations of strain 
and possibly of excitement. When the present ar- 
rives, the strain may give way to relaxation; the 
excitement, to quiet and calm. In all such cases, the 
experiences of strain, excitement, and their oppo- 
sites, consist of sensations, chiefly organic in nature. 
As Titchener remarks in the Lecture cited above, 
"organic sensations are responsible for the [Wundt's] 
dimensions of excitement-depression, and tension- 
relaxation." 

In the opinion of the present writer, the advantage in this 
discussion is on the side of Titchener and those who hold 
with him that there are only two classes or kinds of feeling, 
namely, pleasantness and unpleasantness, and that all other 
differences, excepting those of intensity and duration, in our 
feeling experiences, are -due to their sensational, imaginal, 
and ideational accompaniments. However, as was said above, 
the question is still in debate, and the final solution will de- 
pend upon what precisely we are to mean by a 'feeling', upon 
what, as Titchener says, are the criteria of feeling. 

The question of the number of kinds of feeling should be 
clearly distinguished from the question of the number of 
kinds of pleasantness and unpleasantness. Certain authors 
teach that there are not only more than two kinds of feel- 
ings, but that there are also many kinds each of pleasantness 
and unpleasantness. Ladd, for example, contends that the 
pleasures of sense are, as feelings, different from the more 
elevated intellectual, ^sthetical and ethical pleasures — even 
though the two classes of pleasures be graded to the same 
degree of intensity. Now it is of course true that the total 
experiences, such as eating freely of a favorite fruit and of 
turning fondly through the pages of one's favorite author, 
are very different; but the difference is not due to the dif- 
ference in the kind of feeling present in the two experiences, 



THE FEELINGS 295 

but rather to the difference in the accompanying sensations, 
images, and ideas. 

The Mental Conditions of the Feelings. — Broadly 
stated, the view here advanced concerning the 
mental conditions of the feelings is that they are 
dependent upon certain of the attributes (quality, 
intensity, and duration) of the sensations and the 
relations which arise among these attributes. In 
other words, the feelings of pleasantness and un- 
pleasantness are 'functions', in the mathematical 
sense of that term, of sensation attributes and their 
relations. Furthermore, some feelings are depend- 
ent chiefly upon certain attributes of the special 
sensations (sight, sound, taste, smell, etc.) ; some 
mainly upon the attributes of certain organic sen- 
sations (tension, strain, hunger, thirst, etc.) ; and 
some, so far as rough observation can determine, 
upon sensations belonging to both these groups. 
Let us consider first: — 

Feeling and the Quality of the Special Sensations. — 
Many of the feelings of our ordinary daily expe- 
rience depend primarily upon the quality of the 
special sensations. Thus the pleasantness of the 
taste of a favorite fruit, of the odor of a field of 
blossoming clover, of the sight of a bush full of 
roses, of musical chords, of the touch of velvet, de- 
pends in each case prim.arily upon the quality of 
the accompanying sensation ; likewise, the unpleas- 
antness of the bitter of quinine, of the odor of a 
carrion, of muddy colors, of discords, depends 
chiefly upon the quality of the sensations excited. 



296 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The reasons for believing that, in many instances, 
the feelings depend primarily upon the quality of 
the accompanying sensations are, first, the fact that 
they usually appear in consciousness simultaneously 
with sensations and seem to be inseparably con- 
nected with them; and, second, many sensations 
possess a characteristic feeling-tone, independently 
of their degree of intensity, their duration, and their 
-relations to other sensations. Thus, to most per- 
sons, the odor of a favorite perfume is pleasant, a 
bitter taste is unpleasant, irrespective of their other 
properties or relations. The feeling in each case 
is dependent mainly upon the quality of the sensa- 
tion. 

Feeling and the Organic Sensations. — A second 
great group of feelings are dependent mainly upon 
the organic sensations, particularly the kinaesthetic 
sensations and sensations originating in changes in 
the organs of respiration, circulation, and digestion. 

Feeling and Conation. — Conspicuous in this 
group are those feelings which arise in connection 
with our 'conative tendencies', as they are called, 
namely, our instincts, our inborn impulses, our na- 
tive or acquired cravings, longings, yearnings, our 
strivings, efforts, desires, wishes, volitions, and the 
like. But before stating more explicitly how the 
conative tendencies derive their characteristic feel- 
ing-tone from the organic sensations, let us consider 
for a little while the more obvious relations of the 
feelings to these tendencies. 

In respect to this relationship, Stout writes: 
"Whatever conditions further and favor conation in 



THE FEELINGS 297 

the attainment of its end, yield pleasure. What- 
ever conditions obstruct conation in the attainment 
of its end, are sources of displeasure." ^ The same 
truth is expressed by Ladd, as follows : "The tone 
of our feeling (whether pleasurable or painful) 
depends largely .... upon the degree of 
smoothly running flow, or interruptions and shocks, 
to the current of consciousness ;" - and by Judd in 
the following statement: "So long as the various 
tendencies toward action which are present at a 
given moment contribute favorably to mutual prog- 
ress, the feeling-tone of experience will be agree- 
able; as soon as active tendencies conflict, they will 
be accompanied by a disagreeable feeling." ■ 

Let us next note a few familiar instances of the 
dependence of the feelings upon whatever condi- 
tions obstruct and hinder or favor and further the 
conative processes. First, we may glance at the 
field of instinctive behavior. 

(1) Feeling and instinctive tendencies. — Our 
native impulses are fertile sources of pleasantness 
and unpleasantness. Pleasure accompanies the free, 
unhampered functioning of our instinctive tenden- 
cies ; whereas, if they are crossed, delayed, or denied 
free action we feel displeasure. One finds the most 
striking illustrations of this truth in the behavior 
of little children. The child's impulse to play, to be 
active all his waking hours, his curiosity to see and 
hear and touch and handle all new things, when free 



lA Manual of Psychology, 1899, 234. 

^Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory, p. 199 f. 

^Psychology, p. 196 f. 



298 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

and unrestrained, are clearly the source of great 
joy. On the other hand, hindrances to his activity, 
restraint or interference with his native impulses, 
produce unmistakable signs of displeasure; and 
throughout life our inborn tendencies, unless they 
have been uprooted or transformed, remain impor- 
tant conditions of our joys and sorrows. The ego- 
istic instincts, the expressive instincts, the instincts 
of pugnacity and mastery, sensational and intellect- 
ual curiosity, imitativeness and emulation, acquisi- 
tiveness, the social and parental instincts, each in 
their turn and in their free play, or in their con- 
flicts and inhibitions, give the individual life much 
of whatever tone and color and value it may possess. 

(2) Feeling and sense-craving. — The relation of 
feeling to sense-craving is similar to its relation to 
the instincts. The satisfaction of a craving, whether 
natural, as for food in hunger, or artificial, as for 
certain kinds of stimulants, is accompanied by pleas- 
ure, while its frustration causes displeasure. The 
food or the stimulant in itself and apart from the 
craving may not be pleasant ; it owes this quality to 
the fact that it satisfies a desire, as is evident when 
one remembers that in moderate hunger the taste 
of a given food may give keen pleasure, while in 
satiety the same food may be nauseating. 

(3) Feeling and active attention. — Feeling stands 
in a close relation to active, or voluntary, attention. 
The *wiir to attend to a given object or idea, if suc- 
cessful, gives pleasure; if unsuccessful, if it is ob- 
structed or interfered with in any way, we feel dis- 
pleasure. Illustrations from our everyday life will 



i 



THE FEELINGS 299 

readily occur to the student. Thus when one is try- 
ing to solve a knotty problem in mathematics, or is 
racking his brain in an effort to recall a forgotten 
law or principle, or is striving to get the meaning 
of a difficult paragraph, but cannot attend effect- 
ively to his task because of talking and laughing 
in an adjoining room, one experiences the displeas- 
ure of disturbed or distracted attention. 

(4) Success and defeat as conditions of feeling. — 
It is one of the most familiar of our experiences that 
success in our undertakings gives pleasure and that 
defeat brings pain. Illustration of this fact would 
seem unnecessary, since the whole round of life, 
from the eager games and contests of childhood and 
youth to the most serious concerns of mature life, 
is run through and through with the joys of success 
and the anguish of defeat. Likev/ise, whatever con- 
ditions favor the attainment of a desired object or 
aim are pleasant; those which thwart its attain- 
ment, unpleasant. Hence, e. g., the joy in the full 
purse and its power to provide the summer outing, 
or to purchase the coveted set of books, or the col- 
lection of rare pictures ; hence the pangs of poverty 
and the inability to obtain a fair portion of this 
world's goods. 

Now the point which we wish to emphasize in 
respect to all these experiences is that the feelings 
which are ordinarily attributed to the furtherance 
or the hindrance of our conative tendencies really 
belong to, and are immediately dependent upon, the 
accompanying organic sensations, particularly the 
kinsesthetic sensations of tension, strain, excite- 



300 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ment and certain sensations, hard to name or de- 
scribe, which accompany the free, easy, normal 
functioning of the various bodily organs. Stated 
otherwise, the feelings of pleasantness or unpleas- 
antness that accompany the furtherance or hind- 
rance of the conative tendencies depend upon the 
organic sensations of tension, strain, effort, excite- 
ment, and their opposites which, so far, psychology 
has not adequately described. 

What is known as the 'pains of distraction' affords a good 
illustration of the feelings that, in a sense, are due to the 
obstruction of conative tendencies but which can be ade- 
quately explained only by pointing to their dependence upon 
a complex of organic sensations. Distraction presupposes a 
state of pre-occupation, and this in turn presupposes a mus- 
cular set or attitude appropriate to the dominant mental 
trend. In looking or listening intently, in trying to recall 
something once known but now forgotten, in weighing the 
pros and cons in respect to a proposed course of action; 
briefly, in any case of attentive consideration, one assumes 
either from habit or instinctively a particular bodily attitude 
which sustains, so to say, the purposes or interests of the 
moment. Now in accordance with the principle already 
stated, anything that breaks across or disturbs this bodily 
set, this temporary adjustment of the organism to a par- 
ticular task, excites disagreeable feelings. On the other 
hand, whatever favors and furthers it produces pleasureable 
feelings. 

Moods: Pains. Moreover, we find in the organic 
sensations as a group and as individual processes 
the conditions of the feeling-tone of certain other 
familiar experiences. What we ordinarily call our 
'mood' or 'temper' whether of cheerfulness and gen- 
iality or of gloominess, malaise, sullenness, owes its 



THE FEELINGS 301 

distinctive character in large part to the state of 
our bodily organs and the group of sensations orig- 
inating therein. Besides these pervasive feelings, 
due to the fused total mass of organic sensations of 
a given period, there are others more clearly marked 
and more insistent that are dependent definitely 
and directly upon particular organic sensations 
which stand out from the existing total sensation 
complex. For example, the disagreeableness of 
nausea, hunger, thirst, excessive heart throb, dis- 
turbed respiration, and colic pains are striking in- 
stances of the intimacy of the relationship of the 
feelings to particular organic sensations. Feelings 
of pleasantness are also definitely correlated with 
certain organic sensations originating in the free, 
normal functioning of the various bodily organs. 

Some Feelings dependent on both the Special and 
the Organic Sensations. — We have seen in the pre- 
ceding paragraphs that some of our feeling expe- 
riences are dependent chiefly upon the quality of the 
special sensations and that still larger portions are 
conditioned mainly by the organic sensations. We 
may turn next to those feelings that are dependent 
upon both these sensation groups. 

It will help us to understand the two-fold char- 
acter of the conditions of this group of feelings to 
recall, first, that all effective sensory impulses, be- 
sides exciting definite portions of the cerebral cor- 
tex, excite in addition thereto larger or smaller sec- 
tions of the brain and spinal cord, and through these 
the outlying bodily organs. "There is in such cases'. 



302 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Stout writes, 'a diffused excitement of the nervous 
system .... superadded to that special excite- 
ment which is immediately correlated with the ex- 
istence of the sensation." Now this 'diffused excite- 
ment' of the nervous system necessarily involves, we 
have said, a greater or less excitement of the bodily 
organs; this in turn involves a wave of sensory im- 
pulses flowing backward to the brain and the arousal 
of a group of organic sensations with their own 
special feeling tones. To quote McDougall, "The 
feeling excited by an impression made on one of the 
higher senses is often due in part to reflex changes 
produced in the viscera, which in turn excite organic 
sensations with well marked feeling- tone," ^ Briefly, 
a sensory impulse that is strong enough to excite a 
special sensation, having a clearly marked feeling- 
tone, will also excite, in the manner described above, 
a group of organic sensations with their character- 
istic feeling accompaniments ; and the resulting 
feeling, whether of pleasantness or unpleasantness, 
is conditioned by these two classes of sensations. To 
illustrate: it is a matter of everyday observation 
that the feelings accompanying given color sensa- 
tions, musical tones, noises, tastes, odors, touch- 
blends are compounds of feelings immediately re- 
lated to the sensations themselves and of feelings 
due to the attendant bodily commotion. The dis- 
agreeableness of a grating noise, or of a foul odor, 
or of muddy colors, includes besides the feeling 
characteristic of the sensation itself also a mass of 
feeling from the organic sensations that are ex- 



Physiological Psychology, 1899, p. 80. 



THE FEELINGS 303 

cited therewith. So also the pleasantness of bright 
colors, musical tones, and of agreeable tastes or 
odors, is oftentimes strengthened and corroborated 
by a wave of pleasant feeling from concomitant 
bodily sensations. 

Feeling in Relation to the Intensity and Duration 
of Sensations. — It remains to state briefly the rela- 
tion of feeling to the intensity and duration of sen- 
sations. 

Intensity. — The general statement of the relation 
of the intensity of sensations to the feelings is as 
follows: (1) Many sensations at a low degree of 
intensity have no accompaniment of feeling; they 
are said to be neutral; (2) pleasantness or unpleas- 
antness attaches to all sensations when their intens- 
ity is increased; (3) some sensations are either 
pleasant or unpleasant at all degrees of intensity; 
(4) most sensations become unpleasant at a high 
degree of intensity; and (5) the initial feeling-tone 
of some sensations increases with the increase in 
intensity of the sensation up to a determinable point 
when the feeling, if initially pleasant, becomes un- 
pleasant; if originally unpleasant, it either remains 
stationary, or gives way to indifference. 

Duration. — The experience of everyday life 
teaches that the feeling-tone of sensations depends 
in part upon their temporal properties, i. e., whether 
they are brief or prolonged, continuous or periodic, 
rhythmical or fitful. Generally speaking, the pro- 
longation of a sensation results in dulling the ac- 
companying feeling. This is true whether the sen- 
sation is weak or intense, pleasant or unpleasant. 
Thus the pleasure one derives from a given com- 



304 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

bination of colors, or a popular melody, or a new 
product of the culinary art, fades, or even, in some 
cases, gives way to displeasure, if the conditions 
require gazing at the colors continually, or if the 
melody is constantly dinned in our ears, or when 
the new discovery in the culinary department makes 
its appeal too persistently. The same principle 
holds of disagreeable sensations. The odors of the 
dissecting room, the ugliness of a wall paper, the 
nerve-racking noises of a great city, cease, after a 
time, to affect us disagreeably; or even, in some 
cases, owing to a process of accommodation, sensa- 
tions which are originally disagreeable not infre- 
quently become pleasant. The best illustrations of 
this transformation are seen in the acquired taste 
for olives, for tobacco, and for bitter drinks. Thus 
we find two sets of results due to the prolonged or 
frequently repeated stimulation of the sense-organs ; 
(1) the lowering of the intensity of the original 
feeling which the stimulus excites, due possibly to 
the lowered functional activity of the sense-organs 
involved; (2) a change in the quality of the feeling- 
tone of a sensation due to a process of accommoda- 
tion in the sense-organs. 

The Neural Correlates of the Feelings. — We have 
assumed throughout our study of the mental life 
that every mental process is correlated with a proc- 
ess in the nervous system, that 'every psychosis has 
its neurosis', to quote Huxley's phrase once more. 
The feelings of pleasantness and unpleasantness are 
not excepted in this general statement, and we have 
now to ask, what changes in the nervous system 



THE FEELINGS 305 

accompany these states. It must be said at once 
that when we ask for precise information concern- 
ing the neural correlates of pleasantness and un- 
pleasantness, when we ask how the neural conditions 
of the one differ from those of the other, we get no 
completely satisfactory answer. Our positive knowl- 
edge is extremely meagre, and theories differ widely. 
Our present study will be limited to a review of the 
latter. 

It was maintained in the preceding paragraphs, 
first, that the feelings are dependent upon the 
quality of the special and the organic sensations; 
second, that the feelings are conditioned partly by 
the intensity of the concomitant sensations ; and 
third, that the feelings depend in part upon the tem- 
poral properties of sensations. Now the question 
in all these cases is : what changes in the nervous 
system are correlated with a particular sensation 
quality or intensity or duration which gives it its 
characteristic feeling accompaniment? 

It seems very natural to say in answer to this 
question, first, that since the quality, intensity, and 
duration of sensations are due in the main to the 
character, intensity, and duration of the sensory 
stimuli, the latter are likewise determinants of the 
character of the concomitant feelings; second, that 
any sensory stimulus that affects us pleasantly is 
physically beneficial, and one that affects us unpleas- 
antly is physically injurious. And, speaking very 
generally, we do find that agreeable stimuli pro- 
mote our physical well-being, and that disagreeable 
ones are harmful. But there are many exceptions 

- 20 



306 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to this general statement: as Angell observes, 
'neither agreeableness nor disagreeableness is un- 
ambiguously prophetic', i, e., many pleasant stimuli 
are followed by harmful results, and many that are 
unpleasant, by results that are beneficial. In illus- 
tration of this familiar fact, Stout writes: 

"Sugar of lead has a sweet taste, which is pleasing at the 
moment; this pleasing taste may in itself be favorable to 
vital activity, although the substance w^hich occasions it, 
when introduced into the blood, acts as a deadly poison. 
Similarly, a bitter drug which is disagreeable to the taste, 
may have a beneficial medicinal effect. The beneficial effect 
is not due to the disagreeable bitterness, but to subsequent 
effects entirely disconnected with the original experience." ' 

And yet. Stout seems to say, in the passage just 
quoted, that pleasantness and unpleasantness, as a 
rule, are reliable signs of the beneficial or harmful 
character of physical stimuli. And this is the teach- 
ing of most students of the relation of pleasure and 
pain to physical well-being. But even so, this is 
only one step toward a statement of the neural con- 
ditions of pleasantness and unpleasantness. 

Feelings Dependent upon Anabolic and Katabolic 
Processes. — Among the several theories of these 
conditions that have been proposed the most widely 
favored one attributes pleasantness to processes of 
repair and upbuilding in the sense-organs and ner- 
vous system, and unpleasantness to breaking down 
processes. According to this view, stimuli of a given 
kind and intensity and duration produce in the 



^Manual of Psychology, 1899, p. 229 f. 



THE FEELINGS 307 

nerve tissues physical and chemical changes which, 
in their general character, are destructive, and 
which occasion a feeling of unpleasantness, while 
stimuli of another kind and intensity give rise to 
constructive processes and the resulting feeling of 
pleasantness. 

In this theory we have a plausible suggestion as 
to the neural conditions of many of the feelings ; 
but the student should remember that it is at best 
only a guess, and moreover, that the details of the 
theory are far from being complete. Thus we do 
not know precisely ivhat these changes are, we do 
not know where they occur, nor do we know how 
their effects are transmitted to the cortical centers. 
Again, we do not know how they differ in different 
persons, why the same object arouses different feel- 
ings in different individuals ; or ' why, precisely, a 
sensory experience that, at one time, thrills us with 
the keenest pleasure, at another, fills us with disgust. 
Popularly we attribute such differences to individual 
idiosyncrasies, to differences in physical constitu- 
tion, to passing changes in physical tone, or to habit 
and early associations; but we cannot tell in detail 
wherein the physical grounds of the differences lie. 

Feelings Dependent upon Favoring-Obstructing 
Nerve Processes. — The theory just mentioned, that 
pleasant feelings are dependent upon beneficial, or 
anabolic, processes in the nerve structures and that 
unpleasant feelings are dependent upon destructive, 
katabolic, processes — the harmful-beneficial theory 
of feeling, it may be called — seems to account 
roughly for a large portion of our feeling expe- 



308 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

riences, but not for all. It fails conspicuously as an 
explanation of those feelings that accompany our 
conative tendencies. In respect to this relationship 
we have said that any condition or situation which 
favors the conative processes is agreeable and that 
whatever obstructs or hinders them is disagreeable. 
It was maintained, further, that feelings of unpleas- 
antness are intimately related to the bodily sensa- 
tions of strain, stress, effort, and that pleasurable 
feelings depend upon sensations of freedom, ease, 
lightness. But there is little or no reason for think- 
ing that tension and effort are symptomatic of pre- 
dominantly destructive processes in the nerve tis- 
sues or that freedom and ease indicate the presence 
of constructive, upbuilding processes. Pleasantness, 
in these cases, is not uniformly correlated with con- 
structive processes in the nerve tissues, nor unpleas- 
antness with destructive ones. We must look else- 
where for the neural conditions of the hindrance- 
furtherance feelings. To the present writer it 
seems plausible to suppose that in these experiences 
incoming nervous impulses which favor and cor- 
roborate those already in existence cause pleasure, 
and that when the existent nervous tendencies are 
hindered or obstructed by incoming currents we feel 
displeasure. For example, it does not seem fanciful 
to suppose that the disagreeableness of distracting 
noises, say when one is trying to compare two neigh- 
boring notes on the musical scale, is correlated with 
collisions or cross-currents of the nervous impulses 
from the several sets of stimuli. Or we may liken 
the neural disturbance correlated with unpleasant- 



THE FEELINGS 309 

nesses of this kind to the effect produced when one 
stream flows into and crosses another; or again to 
the commotion caused when two bodies, moving in 
different directions, collide. Following the analogy 
of moving bodies, we may liken the process in the 
nervous system which underlies pleasantness to that 
found when the effect of one moving body is to ac- 
celerate the motion of another; and that which con- 
ditions unpleasantness, to the obstruction of the 
course of a moving body. In brief, anything that 
facilitates the action of existing nerve processes 
gives pleasure, and blocking or crossing them causes 
displeasure. 

To summarize: in the preceding paragraphs we 
have maintained, first, that there are two and only 
two qualities of feeling — pleasantness and unpleas- 
antness; second, that the feelings are conditioned 
chiefly by the quality of the sensations, special and 
organic; third, that the neural basis of feeling con- 
sists of either metabolic or favoring-obstructing 
processes in the nerve tissues. 

Feeling and Habit. ^ — It is often remarked that 
custom dulls feeling. Thus, persons dwelling in the 
midst of beautiful natural scenery grow indifferent 
to its charms. The pleasureable interest one has in 
a new city or country, in listening to new music, or 
in looking at a new collection of pictures; the joy 
one finds in travel in a foreign land, the child's de- 



' The relation of what is somewhat loosely called 'habit' 
or 'custom' to our feeling-life is varied and complex, and any 
description of this relationship which one may give, while it 
may apply in a given situation, is subject to modification 
when the situation changes. 



310 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

light in his new toys, in strange things, in orna- 
ments, all tend through custom to fade away. 

In like manner, we become insensible, through 
dint of repetition, to characteristics of our environ- 
ment which at first are harsh and ugly. Disagree- 
able aspects of our trade, business, or profession, 
ugly features in our daily surroundings, in time lose 
their power to affect us unpleasantly. The classical 
illustration of the blunting of the feelings in respect 
to things which are originally unpleasant and ab- 
horrent is found in the callousness of the grave dig- 
gers in Shakespeare's Hamlet. The reader will re- 
call their rude jests and songs as they go about their 
work, which, to most persons, seems quite the oppo- 
site of jest and mirth provoking. As Hamlet and 
Horatio observe the grave makers, the former re- 
marks : 

"Hath this fellow no feeling of his business, that he sings 
at gravemaking?" to which Horatio replies, 

"Custom hath made it in him a property of easiness." 

Very similar to the change which habit works in our feel- 
ings in respect to large, gross situations which at first affect 
us unpleasantly, is the change which occurs in the process 
of mastering the first steps of new studies, arts, crafts — for 
instance, of a foreign language, of piano technique, of teleg- 
raphy — in fact, of any new subject or art which, at the out- 
set, requires intense application and effort. At first, the 
necessary exercise is painful, but by a process of accommo- 
dation it loses this quality or even, in some cases, becomes 
pleasurable. 

While it is true that our feelings tend toward the, 
indifference point in regard to those things which 
form constant features of our environment, there 



THE FEELINGS 311 

grows up, quite unconsciously, a fondness for what 
is habitual and familiar. Persons often become at- 
tached to lives, kinds of work, or environments 
which at first were even harsh and cruel. In these 
cases, there is, probably, first a period of intense 
pain, then one of indifference, then a feeling of 
reconciliation, and, finally, the feeling of attachment 
which makes itself felt first when there is a threat- 
ened break. The illustrations most often cited of 
the mollifying power of custom are of galley-slaves 
who refuse to leave their yokes though offered their 
freedom, and of "men grown old in prison who ask 
to be readmitted after being once set free." Con- 
cerning habit and its power to form attachments to 
lives called 'hard', James observes : "It alone pre- 
vents the hardest and most repulsive walks of life 
from being deserted by those brought up to tread 
therein," Illustrations from daily life of attach- 
ment to particular ways of acting and thinking 
which springs up through habit are found in the 
comfort that grown persons find in old ways of doing 
things and their resentment when asked to change, 
and in the familiar experience that the effort to 
break a habit of long standing is usually a disagree- 
ble one. The principle has a wide range of appli- 
cation. The explanation of all forms of what the 
younger generation calls 'old fogyism', whether it 
takes the form of clinging blindly to a grotesque 
system of spelling, or of cherishing venerable doc- 
trines in the realm of theology, is found in the un- 
willingness to break with the habitual and custom- 
ary, and this unwillingness is due to the feelings 



312 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

which cluster about the old ways of thinking and 
doing. 

One other illustration of the influence of habit in 
the realm of feeling may be mentioned, namely, that 
feeling-habits of pleasantness or unpleasantness 
frequently become attached to the memories of par- 
ticular experiences. For example, students often 
say that they have acquired an habitual dislike for 
a given school subject, and that the thought thereof 
always arouses a disagreeable feeling. In like man- 
ner, the feeling which clings to the memory of an 
unpleasant journey, to that of a house in which we 
were unhappy, to the thought of a community which 
ruffled our feelings; in a word, to the memory of 
any situation which was constantly irritating, be- 
comes set, fixed, habitually disagreeable. On the 
other hand, the cluster of pleasant feelings which 
attaches to the thoughts about a true and tried 
friend, to the name of our favorite author, to the 
memories of the happy days of childhood, may settle 
into an habitual feelmg mode of pleasantness. 

Feeling and Association. — Slightly changing one 
of James' sentences we may say, 'A sensation or 
idea will infect another with its own feeling tone 
when they have become associated together into any 
sort of a mental whole.' Sensations or ideas which 
are natively unpleasant may become pleasant and 
those which are natively pleasant may become un- 
pleasant through association. Sully finds an illus- 
tration of this principle in the observation that the 
cawing of a crow, a sound which is not agreeable in 



THE FEELINGS 313 

itself, may, because of its associations with pleas- 
ant experiences, become highly pleasurable. 

"This sound', Sully writes, *in the case of those who have 
lived in the country in early life and enjoyed its scenes and 
its adventures, is well known to become a particularly agree- 
able one. To some people, indeed, there is hardly any more 
delightful sonorous effect than that of this rough unmusical 
call. The explanation is that this particular sound, having 
been heard again and again among surroundings, as park 
and woodland, which have a marked accompaniment of pleas- 
ure, has become contiguously interwoven with these presen- 
tations, and so produces a faint re-excitation of the many 
currents of enjoyment which accompanied these." ' 

So, also, the crude music of a hand-organ may not 
be in itself pleasant ; but to the person who in child- 
hood sang and danced to its simple melodies, the 
tones may revive joyous memories, and so be pleas- 
ing. 

"Why," asks Ebbinghaus, "is a sunny spring landscape 
usually more pleasant than the same view in winter?" and 
answers, "partly because the coloring of the former is pleas- 
anter; but chiefly because the ideas associated with the one 
are pleasurable and those associated with the other are un- 
pleasurable. The spring landscape reminds one of life, 
warmth, travel, and picnics; the winter scene suggests death 
and decay, cold, moisture, overheated and ill-ventilated 
rooms." ^ 

Transferrence of Feeling. — Closely connected with 
the fact of the arousal of feeling through association 
is the so-called 'transferrence of feeling', of which 
the miser's love of money is the accredited illustra- 
tion. At first, the money is valued as a means of 
securing desired objects; but, after a time, the feel- 



^ The Human Mind, 1892, Vol. II, p. 78. 
^Payeholcffy: Bn|r. trans, by Meyer, § 19, 



314 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ing attaches to the money itself, independently of 
the ideas of its uses. Or, to take a simpler case, sup- 
pose that you frequently associate, in your thinking, 
a given color with a building or a garment which 
you particularly dislike; then it is likely that the 
color itself will be displeasing to you, wherever it 
occurs and quite apart from its earlier relations. 
The feeling is transferred from the original object 
as a whole to one of its attributes or associates. 



REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Chs. XIII, XIV. 

Judd: Psychology, Ch. VII. 

Pillsbury: The Essentials of Psychology, Ch. XL 

Royce: Outlines of Psychology, 1903, Ch. VII. 

Stout: Manual of Psychology, pp. 210 ff. 276 ff. 

Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 68-74. 



CHAPTER XIV 

EMOTION 

The term 'emotion' denotes such mental expe- 
riences as fear, anger, joy, grief, envy, sympathy, 
pride, humility, and their like. 

The present chapter includes, first, a brief de- 
scription of the distinguishing feature of the emo- 
tions, i. e., the characteristic that serves to mark 
them off from all other mental processes; second, 
an enumeration of the essential factors of an emo- 
tion; third, a study of the 'James-Lange theory' of 
emotion ; fourth, an outline of current theories as 
to the origin of the emotional reactions. 

The distinctive mark of Emotion. — The character- 
istic of the emotions is found in the meaning of 
the Latin emovere (to shake, to stir up) , from which 
the term 'emotion' is derived. A state of emotion 
is essentially a state of excitement, of agitation, of 
disturbance, of perturbation. This is conspicuously 
true of the stronger emotions like rage and terror, 
but it is also true of the quieter emotions whose 
outward signs are often slight and unnoticeable. 
Our common expressions, 'pent up anger', 'smolder- 
ing jealousy', 'choked pity', 'curbed emotion', and 
many more like them, indicate that, in our everyday 
thinking, a fully developed emotional process is con- 
ceived to be essentially a state of perturbation or 
excitement. 

(315) 



316 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The Factors of an Emotion: (i) Organic Sensa- 
tions. — This mental agitation, which, in our view, is 
the distinguishing feature of the emotional expe- 
rience, is due, in part, to the fact that the compo- 
nents of the emotional complex vary greatly in in- 
tensity from moment to moment, and are constantly 
changing, often with great rapidity, their relations 
to one another and to the total conscious state. It 
is due in the main, however, to the presence of a 
special set of sensations which originate in the 
various bodily organs (respiratory, circulatory, di- 
gestive, motor, and glandular) when an emotionally 
exciting object or idea is present to consciousness; 
moreover, the consciousness caused by these bodily 
changes (in heart-beat, breathing, glandular action, 
muscular rigidity, and so on) gives to the various 
emotions their characteristic coloring; in fact, in 
the opinion of many psychologists, constitutes in 
itself the whole of the emotional experience. 

Darwin's description of the bodily reaction to fear 
exciting objects affords a good illustration of the 
large place which bodily commotion and its result- 
ing sensations occupy in our emotional experience. 

"In fear', Darwin writes, 'the eyes and mouth are widely 
opened and the eyebrows raised. One stands like a statue, 
motionless and breathless, or crouches as if to escape obser- 
vation; the heart beats quickly and violently, so that it pal- 
pitates or knocks against the ribs; perspiration exudes from 
the skin, the hair stands erect, the superficial muscles quiver, 
and the salivary glands act imperfectly; the mouth becomes 
dry .... and the voice husky or indistinct, or may alto- 
gether fail."' 



1 The Expression of Ejnotions, 1905, p. 289 f. 



EMOTION 317 

Or take, as another illustration, the same author's de- 
scription of the symptoms of rage: "The heart and circu- 
lation are always affected; the face reddens or becomes pur- 
ple, with the veins on the forehead and neck distended. . . 
But sometimes the action of the heart is so much impeded 
that the countenace becomes pale; the respiration is affected; 

the chest heaves and the dilated nostrils quiver 

The muscles become rigid, the body stiffens, the mouth is 
generally closed with firmness, the teeth are clenched or 
ground together, the fists are clenched as if to strike the 

offender But the muscular system is often affected 

in a wholly different way; for trembling is a frequent conse- 
quence of extreme rage; the paralyzed lips refuse to obey 
the will, and the voice sticks in the throat, or it is rendered 
loud, harsh, and discordant. If there be much and rapid 
speaking, the mouth froths," etc., etc.' 

These quotations, supplemented by what every 
student may easily observe in his own emotional 
experiences, and in the signs of emotion in others, 
will be sufficient warrant for the statement that the 
disturbance of the various bodily organs is a prom- 
inent feature of every emotional reaction. Indeed, 
so prominent is this feature that many psychol- 
ogists, as has been remarked already, regard the 
consciousness caused by these organic changes as 
the sum and substance of the emotional state. Leav- 
ing aside, for the time being, further consideration 
of this latter view, we may inquire what factors 
besides the organic resonance are present in the 
emotional process. 

(2) Feeling. — Besides the sensations arising from 
bodily changes, an emotion includes, as a rule, a 



Op. cit. pp. 74. 238 f. 



318 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

clearly marked feeling factor whose relation to the 
total emotive process calls for brief notice. 

Prior to the publication of the 'James-Lange 
theory' which, in its original form, teaches that emo- 
tions consist of reflexly excited organic sensations, 
the emotions were classed as feelings ; and even yet, 
in popular speech, feeling and emotion are not 
clearly distinguished. Thus we have such expres- 
sions as, 'feeling of fear', 'feelings of anger, grief, 
joy, pride, etc.', although, as we have seen, fear, 
anger, and the rest are emotions. 

Now the popular identification of feeling and emo- 
tion points to the fact that, in many emotions, the 
feeling aspect, just because it is feeling, is so prom- 
inent that the consciousness of the exciting object 
and the sensations from bodily changes are obscured. 
For example, in fear or grief, if intense, the feeling 
aspect is so conspicuous that the other mental fac- 
tors are over-shadowed. In other emotions, e. g., 
scorn, contempt, humility, expectation, surprise, the 
feeling factor is not marked, and it is often difficult 
to say whether these emotions are pleasant or un- 
pleasant. In short, emotions are usually either defin- 
itely pleasant or unpleasant; but the feeling aspect 
may vary, all the way from being practically non- 
existent to an intensity in which it over-shadows all 
other conscious factors in the process. 

If now it be asked, whence comes the pleasantness 
or the unpleasantness of an emotive state, our 
answer would be — mainly as an accompaniment of 
the organic sensations themselves ; that is, the char- 



EMOTION 319 

acteristic quality of pleasantness or unpleasantness 
which accompanies the bodily sensations aroused by 
an emotionally exciting object constitutes the feel- 
ing-tone of the emotion. For example, certain sen- 
sations from the organs of circulation, respiration, 
digestion, the throat, skin, muscles, when combined 
in a given way, form an essential part of the emo- 
tion of fear, and also condition its unpleasantness. 
On the other hand, smiles and laughter, increased 
heart-beat, heightened activity of the muscles, wide- 
open eyes, head erect, dancing about, clapping the 
hands, stamping, loud laughter, are at once causes 
and signs of the pleasantness of a joyful experience. 
(3) Consciousness of the Exciting Object. — A third 
factor of the normal emotional experience is the 
consciousness, of varying clearness, of the exciting 
object. Our fears, angers, loves, jealousies, always 
have, under normal conditions, an object of some 
sort of which we are more or less clearly conscious. 
We are angry at, or toward or about some one or 
some thing; we fear some person, or agency, or ob- 
ject, real or imaginary. 

It is said that in some forms of insanity, the patients ex- 
perience 'objectless emotions'; they have emotions of grief or 
fear or anger, or joy or pride, with their characteristic or- 
ganic perturbation and their appropriate feeling-tone, but 
deny that their grief, fear, joy, is about anything; they are 
just sad, frightened, joyful, and that's all there is to it. 
However it may be with these unfortunates, the emotions of 
normal persons are felt in reference to objects. 

The James-Lange Theory of the Emotions. — 
Common-sense says that our emotions precede and 



320 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

caitse the so-called expressions of emotion; that 
when, for example, we receive good news, we feel 
joy, then express our joy by smiles and laughter, by 
clapping the hands, by the light, elastic step, and so 
on — the latter being called "expressions" of the 
joyful emotion ; that if, when alone at night in a deep 
forest, we hear a strange cry, we feel fear, then the 
fear expresses itself in the trembling muscles, the 
accelerated heart-beating, the suspended respira- 
tion, and other bodily changes. In a word, the 
phrase 'expression of the emotions' incorporates the 
common-sense view of the relation of emotion to its 
expression. The James-Lange theory, on the con- 
trary, is, in James' words, "that the bodily changes 
follow directly the perception of the exciting fact, 
and that our feeling of the same changes as they 
occur is the emotion. Common-sense says, we lose 
our fortune, are sorry and weep ; we meet a bear, 
are frightened and run ; we are insulted by a rival, 
are angry and strike ;" ^ whereas the James-Lange 
theory is that the bodily changes (the weeping, or 
running, or striking) precede the emotion, and that 
the consciousness a-roused by these changes is the 
emotion — the sorrow or fear or anger. 

Since this theory is at present the prevailing one, 
and since it forms the starting point, or at any rate 
a prominent feature, of almost every modern dis- 
cussion of the emotions we shall do well to consider 
briefly what may be said for and against it. 

The arguments upon which this theory rests are 
the following as stated, in substance, by James : 



^Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, p. 449 f. See also, Psycho- 
logical Review, Vol. I, 1894, p. 516-529. 



EMOTION 321 

(1) Particular perceptions certainly do produce instantly 
wide-spread bodily effects, antecedent to the arousal of an 
emotion. If, for example, while walking we suddenly come 
upon some fearful object in our path, say a snake, a bodily 
commotion occurs immediately and reflexly, and before an 
idea of danger can arise; moreover, the consciousness of this 
perturbation seems to be the most conspicuous feature of the 
total experience. 

(2) "In every asylum we find cases of absolutely unmo- 
tived fear, anger, melancholy, etc." In such cases the emo- 
tion is not caused by the objects in the patient's environ- 
ment, nor by his present images and thoughts, yet it exists 
in a character as real and as formidable as if it followed in 
the wake of an appropriate perception or idea. James' theory 
is that these 'objectless emotions' are induced directly by 
bodily changes whose effects in consciousness are the emo- 
tions of fear, anger, dread, or what not. 

(3) "Every one of the bodily changes, whatsoever it be, 

is felt acutely or obscurely the moment it occurs 

Thus a contraction of the eyes and brows, often inconsider- 
able, is felt when one is worried by any slight trouble; and 
when momentarily embarrassed it is something in the phar- 
nyx that compels either a swallow, a clearing of the throat, 
or a slight cough; and so on for as many more instances 
as might be named." 

(4) "The vital point of my whole theory," James writes, 
"is this: If we fancy some strong emotion and then try to 
abstract from our consciousness of it all the feelings of its 
bodily symptoms, we find we have nothing left behind, no 
'mind-stuff' out of which the emotion can be constituted, and 
that a cold and neutral state of intellectual perception is all 

that remains What kind of an emotion of fear 

would be left if the feeling neither of quickened heart-beats, 
nor of shallow breathing, neither of trembling lips nor of 
weakened limbs, neither of goose-flesh nor of visceral stir- 
rings, were present, it is quite impossible for me to think. 



322 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

. . . Every passion in turn tells the same story. A dis- 
embodied human emotion- is' a sheer non-entity." ' 

Objections to the James-Lange Theory. — A view 
which thus runs counter not only to common sense, 
but also to the teaching of psychology for centuries, 
quite naturally has aroused a wide-spread discus- 
sion, much of which takes the form of opposition 
to the theory. Some of these objections, particularly 
those raised by Wundt and Stout, may now be re- 
viewed. 

Wundt's objections. (1) "The definite outer symptoms of 
emotions do not appear," Wundt maintains, "until such time 
as the psychical nature of the emotion is already clearly 
established. The emotion, accordingly, precedes the innerva- 
tion effects which are looked upon by these investigators 
[James and Lange] as causes of the emotion." The answer 
to this objection is that the James-Lange theory does not 
hold that the definite outer symptoms appear prior to the 
emotion; the rather does it lay stress on the bodily changes 
which occur in the inaccessible, hidden parts of the organism, 
those which are inner and not open to observation, as the 
physical basis of the emotions, though, of course, according 
to this theory, the more violent emotions are dependent, in 
part, upon the conspicuous 'outer symptoms' to which Wundt 
refers." 

(2) "The psychical processes [emotions] are much more 
varied than are their accompanying forms of expression." 
Wundt holds, in other words, that the variety of mental 
states called emotions is much greater than the possible var- 
iations of organic response which the James-Lange theory 



^Principles of Psychology, Vol II, p. 450 ff ; also, Psychology, 
p. 376 ff. A corollary of James' theory is, "that any voluntary and 
cold-blooded arousal of the so-called manifestations of a special 
emotion should give us the emotion itself. Now," James continues, 
"within the limits in which It can be verified, experience corroborates 
rather than disproves this inference." 

2 Outlines of Psychology, 1907, § 13, p. 195 f. 



EMOTION 323 

requires. James, in a measure, anticipated this objection by 
the statement that, "The various permutations of which these 
organic changes are susceptible make it abstractly possible 
that no shade of emotion should be without a bodily rever- 
beration as unique, when taken in its totality, as is the men- 
tal mood itself." Now it is clear that these opposing state- 
ments do not settle the issue; they merely define it. James 
held that the forms of bodily expression may be as varied as 
are our emotional experiences; Wundt says they are not, and 
the question remains pretty much where these authors left it. 
(3) "The physical concomitants stand in no constant rela- 
tion to the psychical quality of the emotions It 

may sometimes happen that emotions with very different, 
even opposite, kinds of affective contents, may belong to the 
same class so far as the accompanying physical phenomena 
are concerned." This again raises a question of fact, viz., 
do the same changes in the muscles, heart-beat, breathing, 
glandular action, and so on, accompany a given emotion, 
fear, e. g., on one occasion, and on another, a different emo- 
tion, or even one opposite in character, e. g., courage? It 
does not seem that such is the case; casual observation seems 
to show conclusively that a change in the nature of the 
bodily reaction is accompanied by a change in the emotional 
experience; moreover, that in the individual experience, the 
relationship between the organic changes and the quality of 
the emotions, including their 'affective contents," is constant. 

Stout's objections. Stout raises two objections 
to the James-Lange theory, which are more serious, 
in the present writer's judgment, than those just 
considered. 

Stout's first objection relates to the constitution 
of the emotive process. He maintains that while it 
may be impossible for an emotion to exist without 
the organic sensations, it does not follow that they 
constitute the whole of the emotion. In other words, 
Stout, while admitting that organic sensation is an 
essential factor in the emotional state, holds that it 



324 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

is not the sole factor; that an emotion is a complex 
experience and includes, besides organic sensations, 
conative tendencies, and a feeling of pleasantness or 
unpleasantness according as these tendencies are 
favored or hindered. Thus we have, in this writer's 
view, sensations, conative impulses, and a feeling of 
pleasure or pain, as distinguishable aspects of the 
total emotional state. ^ 

Altogether, it seems better to widen the scope, or 
meaning, of the term emotion, as Stout does, and to 
include under it, in addition to the consciousness due 
to particular kinds of bodily commotion, also the 
consciousness of the exciting object and a character- 
istic feeling tone, to which Stout adds — impulses to 
action. 

A second objection raised by Stout relates partic- 
ularly to the order of appearance of the factors in 
an emotional experience ; this, too, involves a radical 
difference in theory. In order to illustrate Stout's 
thought, suppose the case of a person walking at 
night along a city street, when suddenly a highway- 
man jumps from a dark alley, thrusts a pistol in the 
victim's face, and commands, 'Hands up !' Instantly, 
there is an intense and diffused disturbance of ner- 
vous equilibrium. Now this primary disturbance 
involves both the brain itself and the nerves leading 
to different parts of the body, and "the question is 
whether this primary neural disturbance is itself 
correlated with consciousness of an emotional kind, 
or, at any rate, with consciousness which forms an 



lA Manual of Psychology, 1899, p. 289 ff. 



EMOTION 325 

essential constituent of the complete emotion."^ In 
answer to this question, Stout maintains that 'the 
primary nervous excitement', including changes 
within the brain itself and those changes in the 
nervous system due to the diffusion of the nervous 
discharge, is itself accompanied by a mental dis- 
turbance which is an essential feature of the emo- 
tion; and further, that this mental excitement pre- 
cedes, in time, the excitement due to the onrush of 
reflexly excited impulses from other bodily organs. 
The present writer agrees with Stout on this point ; 
but he agrees with James in regarding the conscious- 
ness that is immediately dependent upon the com- 
motion in the bodily organs as the most important 
part of the emotional experience, and as the factor 
which, more than any other, serves to mark off the 
emotions from all other mental phenomena. 

The Genesis of Emotional Reactions. - — We have 
seen that the core of each particular emotional expe- 
perience consists of organic sensations of a given 
character, number, intensity, and form of combina- 
tion. Fear, for example, derives its distinctive fea- 
ture from one set of bodily sensations ; anger, from 
another; joy and grief, from still others. We have 
now to ask, how comes it that for a given organism, 
each emotionally exciting object awakens its own 
specific kind of bodily commotion and no other? 
how comes it, for example, that one situation pro- 



1 Stout^ op. cit. p 297, note. 

2 On this topic, the student should read Dewey's articles in the 
Psych. Rev., Vols I and II, wherein he undertakes to bring- into 
'organic connection' 'Darwin's principles as to the explanation of 
emotional attitudes, and the James-Lange theory of the nature of 
emotion'. 



326 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

vokes organic changes, the consciousness of which 
forms the characteristic feature of the experience 
called anger? and that others arouse the reactions 
characteristic of fear, joy, disgust, pity, grief, and 
so on? 

It may be said at once that the question regard- 
ing the origin of our various emotional reactions 
is, in large measure, essentially the same as that 
concerning the origin of our instinctive reactions; 
that the question, why do given objects elicit such 
special kinds of emotional response? bears a very 
close resemblance to such inquiries as, how shall we 
explain the extraordinary clinging power of newly- 
born infants? or why do bitter tasting substances 
call forth grimaces? and how comes it that as the 
child passes from infancy to maturity, half a hun- 
dred or more instinctive actions, i. e., actions which 
are 'naturally provoked by the presence of specific 
sorts of outward fact', make their appearance? And 
the answer in both cases is that these reactions are 
due mainly to the individual's inherited tendencies. 
Our first step, then, in accounting for our emo- 
tional reactions is to assume that the principal ones 
are 'innate or inherited — that is, have not been 
learned by the individual.' 

But this statement is very general, and sheds little 
or no light upon the problem concerning the influe- 
ences operative in the course of organic evolution 
which gave rise to the particular relationship which 
now exists between situations of a given nature and 
our particular emotional responses thereto. In order 
to provide at least a partial answer to this question, 
Spencer, Darwin, and others have formulated a 



EMOTION 327 

number of principles which admit of a wide variety 
of applications, as is seen most fully in Darwin's 
work on The Expression of the Emotions. 

Three of the most important of these principles 
may now be considered in turn. The first of these, 
to employ James' words, is "the principle of revival 
in weakened form of reactions which formerly 
(when they were stronger) were useful in more 
violent dealings with the object inspiring the emo- 
tion."^ Darwin's fuller statement of this principle, 
slightly modified, is as follows: 

"When any object has led, during a long series of gener- 
ations, to some voluntary movement, then a tendency to the 
performance of a similar movement will almost certainly be 
excited, whenever the same or a similar object is present to 
consciousness. Such habitual movements are often or gener- 
ally inherited; and they differ but little from reflex actions."" 

This principle, which, for the sake of brevity, may 
be called 'the principle of waning utility', is em- 
ployed by Darwin and others to explain a large num- 
ber of emotional reactions (responses) in man and 
the lower animals. The expression of fear, e. g., is 
explained in part by this, principle, as follows : 

In past ages, man's endeavor "to escape from his enemies 
or danger, either by headlong flight, or by violently strug- 
gling with them, .... caused the heart to beat rapidly, 

the chest to heave, and the nostrils to be dilated. 

As these exertions have often been prolonged to the last 
extremity, the final result would have been utter prostration, 
pallor, perspiration, trembling of all the muscles, or their 
complete relaxation." ^ 



'■ Op. cit., p. 478 f. 

'■ The Expression of the Emotions, 1905, p 48. 

' Op. cit., p. 307. 



328 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

So at the present time, because of these ancestral 
experiences, the same results in the form of nascent 
tendencies to flight, or crouching, the pallor, etc., 
tend to reappear as reminiscent echoes, when the 
man of today is in the presence of a fear provoking 
situation. Again, the protrusion of the lips, so often 
seen in children and highly emotional adults, — 
sometimes as a sign of sulkiness, or disappointment 
or surprise, sometimes when slightly pleased — is, 
so Darwin surmises, also a reversion to a primordial 
expression which appeared in our semi-human pro- 
genitors' reactions to disappointing or surprising or 
pleasing situations. In like manner, the upward curl 
of half the upper lip in the playful or defiant sneer 
or in the ferocious snarl is a descendant, in weak- 
ened form, of the habit possessed by our semi-human 
progenitors of unfleshing their canine teeth when 
prepared for battle. 

(2) Many emotional reactions are attributed by 
Spencer, Darwin, and others to the undirected over- 
flow of nervous energy throughout the nervous sys- 
tem which many stimuli, particularly strong ones, 
cause. Among the effects ascribed wholly or in 
part to the diffusive excitement of the nervous sys- 
tem are — the cold sweat, the dryness of the mouth, 
and the trembling of the muscles in fear; the 'lump 
in the throat' in grief; the disturbance of the func- 
tions of the liver and kidneys, the modified secre- 
tions of the intestinal canal, the changes in the 
heart-beat and breathing, in all the stronger emo- 
tions. So also the senseless and frantic actions of 
an enraged man may be attributed in part to the 
undirected overflow of nerve force. This princple 



EMOTION 329 

seems also to explain the strong tendency to various 
purposeless movements and the utterance of various 
sounds under a transport of joy, rapture or ecstacy. 
"We see this', Darwin writes, 'in our young children, 
in their loud laughter, clapping of hands and jump- 
ing for joy. , . . The above purposeless move- 
ments and increased heart-action', Darwin con- 
tinues, 'may be attributed in chief part to the excited 
state of the sensorium, and to the consequent undi- 
rected overflow, (as Mr. Herbert Spencer insists) 
of nerve-force."' These examples will suffice to illus- 
trate the general statement that many emotional 
responses "are in large part directly due to the dis- 
turbed or interrupted transmission of nerve-force 
from the cerebro-spinal system to various parts of 
the body." 

(3) If, in accordance with the first principle 
stated above, certain situations regularly call forth 
reactions of a given kind, there will be, according 
to the principle of antithesis, a strong and involun- 
tary tendency to react in an opposite manner under 
the excitement of an opposite kind of situation. This 
principle, which relates particularly to the function- 
ing of the muscular system, is useful in accounting 
for the opposite sensations of strain and relaxation 
which form so prominent a feature of many emo- 
tions. Thus, the sensation of strain forms a con- 
spicuous factor of such emotions as anger (in its 
various forms) astonishment, hope, anxiety, de- 
fiance, jealousy, indignation, pride, scorn, while the 



1 Op. cit., pp. 76, 307. 



330 ELEMENTS OP PSYCHOLOGY 

sensations of relaxation are prominent in dejection, 
despair, grief, humility, helplessness, sulkiness. In 
like manner, the body erect, the squared shoulders, 
the expanding chest, the clenched fists, the frown, 
the firmly set jaws, of the indignant man yield a 
set of strain sensations which stand clearly opposed 
to the sensations of relaxation which belong to the 
emotions of regret or penitence. Again, the high 
head, the lofty carriage, the puffed-up demeanor, 
the strutting of pride, furnish, it need hardly be 
argued, a fund of strain sensations which stand in 
strong contrast to sensations of relaxation which 
are features of humility. 

The three principles thus far enumerated afford a 
partial explanation of the origin of inherited, or 
innate, emotional reactions. A fourth principle, 
that of habit and association, relates more particu- 
larly to the development of emotional responses in 
the individual experience. This principle is that 
reactions which have become associated with given 
objects are repeated in weakened form on the ap- 
pearance of similar objects. For example, the signs 
of disgust — the movements of the mouth, the frown, 
gestures as if to guard oneself against the offensive 
object, a sound as if clearing the throat, incipient 
retching, spitting, a slight shudder and so on — 
which are excited by present objects that are offens- 
ive to taste or smell, will from habit arise at the 
image or idea of the offensive object or at the idea 
of actions or objects which would, if present to 
sense, be offensive. Again, the movements around 
the nose and mouth expressive of contempt, some- 



EMOTION 331 

times accompanied by a slight snort or expiration, 
are the same as those which follow the perception 
of an offensive odor and the wish to exclude or expel 
it. So in contempt, ''we seem to say to the despised 
person that he smells offensively, in nearly the same 
manner as we express to him by half-closing our 
eyelids, or turning away our faces, that he is not 
worth looking at. It must not, however, be sup- 
posed that such ideas actually pass through the mind 
when we exhibit our contempt ; but as whenever we 
have perceived a disagreeable odor or seen a dis- 
agreeable sight, actions of this kind have been per- 
formed, they have become habitual or fixed, and are 
now employed under any analogous state of mind."^ 
Summary. In our study of Emotion we have seen 
— (1) that mental perturbation is the characteristic 
feature of the emotional state; (2) that every fully 
developed emotion includes as its chief factors (a) 
a plexus of organic sensations, (b) a feeling of 
either pleasantness or unpleasantness, (c) a con- 
sciousness, of varying clearness, of the emotion's 
object; (3) that the James-Lange theory must be 
modified so as to take account of all of the factors 
just enumerated; (4) that the principles (a) of 
waning utility, (b) of diffused excitement of the 
nervous system, (c) of antithesis, and (d) of habit 
and association, afford a partial explanation of the 
genesis of emotional reactions in the species and in 
the individual. 



1 Darwin, Op. cit., p. 255 f. 



332 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 



REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Chs. XVIII, XIX. 
James: Principles of Psychology, Vol. II, Ch. XXV. 
McDougall: Social Psychology, 1908, Chs. Ill, V. 
Royce: Outlines of Psychology, Ch. XIV. 
Stout: Manual of Psychology, Book III, Ch. IV. 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§128-134. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE SENTIMENTS 

Meaning of the Term 'Sentiment.' — The term 
'sentiment', like so many others which the psycholo- 
gists employ, is used in a great variety of meanings 
both in the language of everyday life and by the 
psychologists themselves. Sometimes it is used 
loosely as the equivalent of either belief, view, judg- 
ment, body of doctrine or a declaration of faith, as 
when one says in respect to a given opinion, view, 
or body of principles, 'this is my sentiment', 'this is 
the sentiment of our party or of our community.' 
Sometimes it means something unreal, fanciful, as 
opposed to the real, genuine, substantial, as when 
one ridicules another's interest in music or literature 
or religion by saying, "it is a mere sentiment with 
him; he doesn't take it seriously." Most frequently, 
however, the term is used as the equivalent of emo- 
tion; thus, one speaks of the tender, the amiable, joy- 
ful sentiments, and of those which are angry, en- 
vious, or ugly, when the speaker usually means am- 
iable, tender, joyful, angry, etc., emotions. 

In this chapter we shall mean by 'Sentiment' 
(following two English writers)^ a relatively per- 
manent emotional attitude, or disposition, in respect 
to a given object or class of objects which is assumed 



1 Shand, Character and Emotions, Mind, N. S. Vol. V, p. 214 ff; 
StouTj a Manual of Psychology, 1899, pp. 300, 575 ff. 

( 333 ) 



334 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

to be helpful or harmful, valuable or valueless, 
worthy or unworthy; in other words, a sentiment 
is an emotional attitude which attaches to a value 
judgment, i. e., a judgment regarding the value, 
from the point of view of the person who utters it, 
of a given object. Three points of this definition 
should be noted: (1) a sentiment involves a judg- 
ment of worth in regard to a given object or group 
of objects; (2) it includes the feeling and the re- 
flexly excited organic sensations that are character- 
istic of its closely related emotions; (3) it is a rela- 
tively permanent mode of consciousness, it is a com- 
plex mental habit. Under the term sentiment, thus 
defined, we should include "affection for our friends, 
the home sentiment, and every sentiment we can 
use the term 'love' to express, as love of knowledge, 
art, goodness, love of comfort, and all our interests, 
as interest in our health, fortune and profession, 
interest in books, collections," and so on. We should 
include also every fixed tendency we can use the 
terms dislike or hatred to denote, and many more 
besides, since every kind of emotional reaction, if 
oft repeated, tends to develop into a fixed emotional 
attitude, or sentiment.- 

Sentiment and Emotion Compared. — The senti- 
ments are distinguished from the emotions in four 
principal ways: (1) Broadly speaking, the former 
are pre-eminently human experiences, while the 



2 This definition of 'sentiment' seems to give due prominence to 
those meanings which the term bears in literature and in everyday 
speech ; and it also enables us to. mark it off from the terms 'feel- 
ing' and 'emotion.' * * *■ Other e(juival§nts of the word 'senti-- 
ment' are 'interest,' 'emotional disposition' or 'attitude.' 



THE SENTIMENTS 335 

emotions are shared in by man and the lower ani- 
mals. This rough distinction of the sentiments as 
human experiences and the emotions as animal, is 
clearly valid in respect to the abstract sentiments 
on the one hand, and in respect to the 'coarser emo- 
tions' on the other. No animal, however noble, 
knows anything of the sentiments of 'duty', 'justice', 
'reverence', and the like; but many animals share 
with man the emotions of fear, anger, joy, grief — 
which are fittingly called, by some writers, the 'ani- 
mal emotions.' 

It is no doubt true that a dog's fondness for his master 
has points of similarity to the master's affectionate regard 
for his old home, his native town, or his friends; and both 
are instances of the attachment which arises in regard to 
those features of an environment to which one is accustomed. 
But the two differ in that the man's sentimental interest may 
be based, in part, upon ideas of worth which attach to the 
objects of his regard, while the dog's fondness for his master 
is based wholly upon the pleasurable sensations of being 
fed, petted, and the like. It is also true that many emotional 
experiences are entirely foreign to the lower animals, e. g., 
admiration for ideal goods like truth, beauty, goodness, the 
emotions of envy, scorn, sympathy, hope, and many others 
which are distinctly human affairs. And yet in a broad way, 
we may think of the sentiments as characteristically human 
experiences, and that man and the lower animals are joint 
tenants in the territory of the emotions. 

(2) The sentiments are relatively permanent at- 
titudes toward certain objects, or groups of objects, 
whereas the emotions are transitory in character. 
A sentiment abides ; an emotion runs its course and 
vanishes. For example, the sentiment of patriotism 



336 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

is a relatively stable attitude ; to say of one's patriot- 
ism that it is emotional is to imply that it is fickle, 
spurious, lacking in permanent worth. In like man- 
ner, the sentiment which attaches to one's ideas of 
duty is a fixed characteristic of one's nature; it is 
either ridicule or a reproach to describe a person's 
sense of duty as emotional. The sentiments are rela- 
tively permanent, while the emotions come and go. 

Stout has this distinction in mind when he says that 
the difference between emotion and sentiment is to a large 
extent a distinction between dispositions and actual states 
of consciousness. "Such a sentiment as friendship', Stout 
continues in substance, 'cannot be experienced in its totality 
at any one moment. It is felt only in the special phase 
which is determined by the circumstances of the moment. 
The sorrow of parting from a friend and the joy of meeting 
him after a long absence are actual experiences; but the 
sentiment which includes the susceptibility to either, accord- 
ing to circumstances, cannot in its totality be an actual 
experience. It is a complex emotional disposition which 
manifests itself in actual emotions. The sentiment, so far 
as actual experience is concerned, is constituted by the man- 
ifold emotions in which it manifests itself." ^ 

(3) We have seen above that many of our emo- 
tional responses are innate; the sentiments, on the 
other hand, are acquired; they are built up out of 
a multitude of feeling-emotional responses, and re- 
quire a period of growth. This is obviously true 
of such sentiments as love of justice, loyalty to 
one's family or school, devotion to science or art, 
and the like. Some of these are developed in the 
course of education by teachers and parents, some 



1 A Manual of Psychology^ 1899, p. 578. 



THE SENTIMENTS 337 

of them grow up without conscious purpose on any 
one's part, partly by imitation, partly by absorp- 
tion from the fund of common sentiment. 

Apparent exceptions to the general statement that the 
sentiments develop slowly are found in those instances in 
which some single, impressive experience fixes a deep and 
lasting sentiment, as when Saul of Tarsus was transformed 
from a persecutor of the Christians to the most powerful 
preacher of the new doctrine; or in the case of Lincoln who 
suddenly became possessed of a deep hatred of human slav- 
ery when, as a young man, he chanced to visit a certain 
slave market. These exceptions, however, are only appar- 
ent, for doubtless in the case of both St. Paul and Lincoln, 
a multitude of experiences had prepared them for the over- 
powering sentiments which were henceforth to dominate 
their lives. 

(4) The sentiments lack the organic commotion, 
the surging, the rush and turbulence, which are 
characteristic of many emotions. And yet, while 
this difference is clear, the sentiments are not 
merely cold, intellectual perceptions that certain 
things are true, or good, or beautiful, or praise- 
worthy. With slight changes, James' statement in 
respect to the 'bodily reverberation' as an aspect of 
the moral, intellectual and sesthetical feelings — the 
subtler emotions — applies also to the sentiments : 

"In all cases of intellectual or moral rapture we find," 
he says, "that unless there be coupled a bodily reverbera- 
tion of some kind with the mere thought of the object and 
cognition of its quality; unless we actually laugh at the 
neatness of the demonstration or witticism; unless we thrill 
at the case of justice, or tingle at the act of magnanimity; 
our state of mind can hardly be called emotional at all," * 



^Principles of Psychology^ Vol. II, p. 470, 
32 



338 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

So we may say of the sentiments that although they 
lack the organic resonance and the mental pertur- 
bation which characterize the emotions, they still 
have, in Ladd's words, "a sensuous coloring from 
the changes in the concomitant condition of the per- 
ipheral and intra-organic vessels and tissues." This 
is as one would expect when one recalls that the 
sentiments are the final resultants, the precipitates, 
of multitudes of emotional experiences ; they too are 
tinged by the influence of the earlier emotional re- 
actions. 

The sentiments which are called 'warm' or 'glow- 
ing' show most plainly the presence of the organic 
factor. In illustration take Ladd's description of 
the sentiment of sublimity : 

"That is sublime," Ladd writes, "which is lifted up on 
high; and that is sublime to me, to which I am conscious, 
in some way, of being drawn or lifted up, or allured to 
make the effort of lifting myself up. Such an experience 
cannot, however, be had with any warmth of feeling — that 
is, there can be no actual psychosis corresponding to the 
sentiment of the sublime — without the appropriate psycho- 
physical activity. This activity includes .... the deeper 
inspiration, the quickened circulation, the tendency to widen 

the extent of the heart movement, etc The effort to 

repress this mild and massive bodily resonance .... tends 
at once to diminish this characteristic form of feeling [senti- 
ment.] Its presence is undoubtedly felt in all experience 
with this sentiment. Moreover, the different shadings of 
the sentiment are, to a large extent, obtained only by differ- 
entiations in the characteristic tone of the bodily resonance.' 

Shand, in the article referred to above, points out 
one other relation between sentiment and emotion, 

^Psychology: Descriptive and Explanatory ^ 1899, p. 562 f. 



THE SENTIMENTS 339 

which we may notice briefly. We have seen in a 
foregoing paragraph that the sentiments are out- 
growths of our emotional experience. Now Shand 
calls attention to the fact that "sentiments, when 
they have once come into being, are themselves in- 
dependent sources of manifold feeling attitudes and 
conations [emotional reactions] , varying with vary- 
ing circumstances. They are complex mental dis- 
positions, and may, as divers occasions arise, give 
birth to the whole gamut of the emotions."- For 
example, *'in the love of an object," Shand writes, 
"there is pleasure in presence and desire in absence 
. . . . fear in the expectation of its loss, injury 
or destruction .... anger when the course 
of our interest is opposed or frustrated .... 
regret in the loss, injury, or destruction of the ob- 
ject, joy in its restoration or improvement, and ad- 
miration for its superior quality or excellence. And 
this series of emotions — as episodes in the life- 
history of the sentiment — occurs now in one order, 
now in another, in every sentiment of love or inter- 
est, when the appropriate conditions are present. "- 
We have given in the preceding paragraphs a 
brief description of sentiment as an emotional atti- 
tude, and we have indicated certain ways in which 
it differs from and is related to emotion. We may 
turn next to a group of phenomena which, in the 
history of thought, have been regarded as the char- 
acteristic sentiments, namely, those emotional atti- 
tudes that attach to the ideals of truth, beauty, and 



1 StouTj The G-roundtvork of Psychology, 1P03, p. 224. 
^Manual of Psychology j 575 ff. 



340 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

goodness. They are usually referred to as the intel- 
lectual, aesthetic, and ethical, or moral, sentiments. 
In what follows, we shall be interested most in the 
order and conditions of the development of these 
sentiments in the individual. 

The Intellectual Sentiments. — The intellectual sen- 
timents are those pemianent emotional attitudes 
which are developed in respect to knowledge, or 
truth, as something worthy in itself. These senti- 
ments are designated by a variety of expressions, 
the most common of which are, "the love of knowl- 
edge for its own sake," "refined intellectual curios- 
ity," "the feeling of the value of truth in and for 
itself," "the pleasures of knowledge," "devotion to 
science," and others of a similar purport. 

If we were to search out the sources, the most 
primitive forms from which an individual's intel- 
lectual sentiments spring we should come upon the 
sensational curiosity, or hunger, of infancy, i. e., 
those impulses, which are so striking a feature of 
every normal baby's behavior, to see, hear, touch, 
handle everything in his environment; we should 
also be struck by the evident pleasure which accom- 
panies the gratification of these impulses. A little 
later, appears the absorbing interest in whatever is 
new or strange, the childish wonder at all things 
marvelous. Then comes the delight in acquiring 
knowledge about all sorts of things — the objects of 
nature, heroes and their achievements, historical 
events, politics and government. This is a period of 
disinterested curiosity, the period when the pupil's 
native eagerness for knowledge is the pride and the 



THE SENTIMENTS 341 

delight of teachers and parents. It is now that edu- 
cation may well be conceived of as, in part, a process 
of nourishing, directing, strengthening, and refining 
the pupil's intellectual interests. Then, later, the 
youth begins to see the practical benefits of a well- 
stored mind, the distinction which comes to 'the 
man who knows', and the practical advantages 
which the well informed man has over the ignorant 
one; he may also feel pride in his knowledge as a 
source of strength, and shame in his ignorance since 
it means weakness. He is now at the age to believe 
that 'knowledge is power', and that it is valuable 
because it does give its possessor practical advan- 
tages in the struggle for position, influence, riches, 
and fame. This is the stage at which most seekers 
after knowledge stop. Knowledge for them is good, 
but it is good only as a means to some other end. 

So far there is little of the love of knowledge as a 
sentiment or passion. The nearest approach to it 
is found in the intellectual avidity of childhood and 
youth, but thi-s is too concrete, too much in regard 
to particular things, and too evanescent to be called 
an intellectual sentiment. The last stage is reached 
only by the exceptional minds. Only a few choice 
spirits ,in each generation, even among the most en- 
lightened peoples, ever come to care deeply for 
knowledge as a good in itself; and these are our 
scholars, philosophers, and our heroes of scientific 
research ; those who like Bacon, Newton, Kant, Dar- 
win, and Helmholtz, devote their lives to the pur- 
suit and interpretation of known truth and to the 
extension of the boundaries of human knowledge. 



342 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

There can be no doubt of the genuineness of this senti- 
ment or of its nobility as a controlling interest in the lives 
of many who profess it. And yet, as Ladd remarks, "a 
purely sentimental feeling toward a fictitious creature of 
imagination called 'science', or a secretive and miser-like 
eagerness to acquire and hoard facts, are affective phe- 
nomena which .... are almost pathological in character." 
As illustrative of the 'secretive and miser-like eagerness to 
acquire and hoard facts', one thinks of the hermits found in 
almost every age and land, who like the Hungarian, Mentelli, 
philologist and mathematician, without a definite end in 
view, simply for the pleasure of learning and to satisfy 
their intellectual cravings, devote their entire lives to study, 
having apparently no other aims. 

Mentelli's case is typical enough of a class, much larger 
than is generally known, of intellectual misers living in vol- 
untary exile and spending all their time and strength in 
study, to warrant a brief quotation from his biography as it 
is reproduced by Ribot, as follows: 

"Living at Paris, in a filthy lodging, the use of which 
was allowed him out of charity, he had cut off from his ex- 
penditures all that was not absolutely necessary to sustain 
life. His outlay — apart from the purchase of books — • 
amounted to seven sous (cents) a day, three of which went 
for food, and four for light. . . . All he needed was water 
which he fetched for himself, potatoes which he cooked over 
his lamp, oil to feed the latter, and coarse brown bread." 
Ribot cites Mentelli and others like him as cases "where the 
love of knowledge alone, untarnished by other motives, has 
all the characteristics of a fixed and tenacious passion, fill- 
ing the whole of life, and expressing the whole nature of 
man."^ 

The Moral Sentiments. — In order to account for 
the origin and development of the moral sentiments 
in the individual, we have to consider the action of 



1 The Psychology of the Emotions^ 1906, p. 373 f. 



THE SENTIMENTS 343 

certain environmental agencies upon certain of the 
individual's innate tendencies and capacities. 
Among the child's native tendencies or impulses 
which may be regarded as the special conditions of 
the development of the moral sentiments are to be 
noted — (1) the self-regarding impulses, the indi- 
vidualistic instincts, love of pleasant experiences 
and dislike of painful ones, and (2) the social in- 
stincts of sympathy, the impulse to echo the feeling 
and emotional reactions of others (social respons- 
iveness or sensitivity), the love of approbation and 
dislike of blame. We assume further that the indi- 
vidual has (a) the capacity to form habits, (b) the 
ability to profit by experience which latter capacity 
involves memory, and (c) the power to reject some 
of the possibilities of action and select, maintain, 
and strengthen others. The environmental agencies 
necessary to the development of the moral senti- 
ments are persons, in the role of authority, issuing 
commands, rewarding obedience and punishing dis- 
obedience, stamping with approval what the society 
regards as right, disapproving what it regards as 
wrong ; developing, cherishing all actions which pro- 
mote the general good of society; smothering, up- 
rooting those which are judged to be harmful ; and, 
in addition, furnishing an example of conduct which 
is socially acceptable, and also the grounds of its 
acceptability. 

An individual with the endowment of instincts 
and capacities outlined above, and environmental 
agencies which act npon these in the way indicated, 
are the necessary conditions for the development of 



344 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the moral sentiments in the individual. For pur- 
poses of description, this developmental process may 
be thought of as consisting of four stages. First, 
is the stage of control by rewards and punishment; 
second, the imitative stage; third, the stage char- 
acterized by fixed habits; fourth, that in which 
rationalized ethical sentiments are dominant in the 
individual's behavior. 

Two points, however, in respect to the division of 
this developmental process into a number of periods 
should be carefully noted: (1) We are not to sup- 
pose that these stages correspond in any literal 
sense to definite age periods in the life of the indi- 
vidual. As a matter of fact, however, the first stage 
corresponds roughly to the period of infancy and 
early childhood; the second, to that of childhood 
and youth ; and the age of fixed habits is reached at 
twenty or twenty-five, while the rule of the enlight- 
ened moral sentiments is established somewhat 
later. But this correspondence is only rough, at 
best, and is not important for our purposes. (2) It 
should be observed that the different periods with 
their characteristic activities and motives to activity 
over-lap. A given stage is not sharply marked off 
from those which precede or follow it. Thus, while 
we may suppose that the moral behavior of many 
adults is dominated by fixed moral sentiments, we 
may still doubt that many persons ever completely 
outgrow the influence of the hope of reward and the 
fear of punishment. 

With this understanding of the terms 'stage' and 
'period', we may say that the first stage is one in 



THE SENTIMENTS 345 

which the incentives and determinants to given 
kinds of conduct exist in the form of rewards ^ 
usually some sense-pleasure — when the individual's 
conduct is judged to be good, and punishment — 
usually corporal — when it is judged bad. It will not 
be thought by anyone that this mode of controlling 
the conduct of a child is an effective or economical 
way of arousing and fostering the moral sentiments 
— the love of right and hatred of the wrong — in 
themselves. Moreover, this method, since it appeals, 
merely to motives of prudence, tends, when pro- 
longed, as we are taught by the ethical philosophers, 
to undermine the moral life; and certain it is that 
the person who does the good deed and refrains 
from doing the bad one in order to gain pleasure, 
in the one case, and to avoid pain, in the other, is 
far from the blessedness of him 'whose delight is in 
the moral law.' 

The second stage is marked chiefly by the imita- 
tive behavior of the child or youth. During this 
period the individual repeats imitatively innumer- 
able feeling-emotion responses of those with whom 
he is associated — parent, teacher, companion. The 
things which cause the tingle of admiration or the 
shudder of disgust in others arouse the same expe- 
riences in him. Their delight is his delight; their 
abhorrence, his. At this stage, the individual's 
feeling-emotional responses, in respect to questions 
of moral behavior, are largely an echo of those of 
his social leaders. If their responses are worthy, 
his will reflect in some measure that quality ; if they 
are base, his will be also. It need scarcely be said 



346 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

that this stage is still far from that of the fully 
ripened character with its funded capital of ration- 
alized moral sentiments. 

A third stage is reached when, by dint of repe- 
tition, an individual comes to experience habitually 
the same feelings and emotions in respect to moral 
ideas, situations, or suggestions. He is no longer 
controlled wholly by prudential reasons — thoughts 
of the pleasures and pains which may befall him; 
nor is he swayed by every turn of emotion in his 
associates. From habit, certain kinds and ideals of 
conduct commend themselves to his judgment and 
awaken a thrill of approval; certain other kinds 
provoke his censure, and arouse feelings of repug- 
nance or indignation. He may not be able to justify 
his emotional responses to moral situations, but for 
good or for ill his character is fixed. 

We have traced in outline three stages in the 
development of the moral sentiments in the individ- 
ual: (1) the pleasure-pain stage; (2) the stage of 
imitation; and (3) the period of fixed attitudes in 
regard to moral questions. A higher stage of de- 
velopment is reached when moral situations not 
only call forth uniformly a definite body of feeling 
and emotion, but when the individual can justify 
his habitual modes of response by referring to 
ethical standards, when he comes to see that the 
sort of conduct which the conscience of society com- 
mends promotes in some way the general welfare 
of its members, and that those forms of behavior 
which are condemned are subversive of the general 
good. This is the stage of insight into the grounds 



THE SENTIMENTS 347 

of one's ethical responses. For example, the sense 
of condemnation which dishonesty, injustice, and 
like wrongs arouse is based on insight into the injury 
they work in society. Consider further the ration- 
alized sentiments which cluster about the Hebrew 
decalogue. No doubt the Commandments owe part 
of their power over the minds of men to certain fea- 
tures of the Old Testament account of their deliver- 
ance to Moses; but their influence over the more 
reflective minds grows partly out of the perception 
that the manner of life which the Commandments 
enjoin is an essential condition of a people's pros- 
perity. 

The more abstract moral sentiments of devotion 
to duty, the feeling of obligation, reverence for the 
moral law, grow naturally out of the particular con- 
crete experiences and observations just mentioned. 
That is, the frequent observation of the beneficent 
rGbuics which follow obedience to the moral law 
leads, by a simple process of induction to the con- 
clusion that law, in the broad sense, is worthy of 
admiration and reverence. So of the sentiments 
which gather about other abstract moral goods or 
ideals like justice, honesty, benevolence — they arise 
by a process of generalizing on the basis of a num- 
ber of concrete experiences. 

The Aesthetic Sentiment. — The aesthetic senti- 
ment is a permanent tendency or disposition to find 
enjoyment in the beautiful in its various forms and 
modes of manifestation. Love of the beautiful, as 
a sentiment, differs from aesthetic feelings and emo- 
tions in much the same way that a habit differs 



348 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

from the individual activities by which the habit is 
formed; it is a crystalization from a multitude of 
sesthetical responses. 

The aesthetic sentiment, as thus described, is a 
late attainment of the indivdiual, but its beginnings 
are found in the little child's pleasure in sense im- 
pressions, particularly those of sight and hearing. 
Even in infancy we find a rudimentary feeling for 
the beautiful in the responses to various presenta- 
tions of light, color, and sound. In the opinion of 
Sully, 

"It is commonly some bit of bright light, especially when 
it is in movement, which first charms the eye of the novice; 
the dancing fireflame, for example, the play of the sunlight 
on a bit of glass or a gilded frame. In some cases it is a 
patch of bright color or a gay pattern on the mother's dress 
which calls forth a vocal welcome in the shape of baby 'talk- 
ing.' In the out of door scene, too, it is the glitter of the . 
running water, or a meadow all white with daisies, which 
captivates the glance. Light, the symbol of life's joy, seems 
to be the first language in which the spirit of beauty speaks 
to the child." 

Consequently his delight in colors is not so much a 
pleasure in the colors themselves as in their bright- 
ness ; hence the preference of most children for the 
bright, luminous tints. Later, children show an 
interest in color as color, and many of them develop 
color preferences which last throughout life. Later 
still appears the appreciation of the finer shades 
and tints and of color combination and harmony. 

It is well known that little children are highly sen- 
sitive to sound. Sometimes, perhaps nearly always 
in infancy, sounds serve only to startle and to 



THE SENTIMENTS 349 

awaken fear, but at other times, if they are low and 
soft, and if they occur in rhythmic series, they are 
pleasing. So delight in simple tunes and melodies, 
when they are not too loud, is accounted among the 
native capacities of the normal child ; it is the rudi- 
mentary form from which are developed all the 
higher forms of musical appreciation and insight. 

It is an open question whether appreciation of 
color harmony, proportion, balance, symmetry, unity 
of design, and other elements of artistic composition 
is inborn or acquired. It seems likely, however, that 
most persons develop easily and without special 
training at least a negative appreciation of these 
formal elements, i. e., they are affected unpleasantly 
by objects which lack them. Thus, one says, of a 
work of art, "there is something 'wrong' with that, 
but I don't know what." Again, the passing throng, 
though unable to give reasons for their preference, 
like the one of two adjoining buildings or pictures 
which embodies all the features of artistic composi- 
tion and dislike the other which lacks them. But 
whatever view we may adopt in respect to the 
innateness of these higher forms of aesthetic appre- 
ciation, there can be no doubt that love of bright- 
ness, color, rhythm and melody is well-nigh uni- 
versal and affords the foundation for a very real, if 
not always highly enlightened, superstructure of 
sesthetical sentiment. 

When we consider the process by M^hich these 
rudimentary aesthetic tendencies are trained and 
developed, we find the same laws operative which 
obtain in the development of the other sentiments. 



350 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The child is taught that certain things are beautiful 
and that certain others are ugly. If example and 
precept are in agreement, he sees that his leaders 
take pleasure in the things which they commend to 
his admiration and that they are repelled by the 
things which he is told are ugly. Again, the child 
is praised when his aesthetic judgments accord with 
those of his elders and he is reproved when they do 
not. Moreover, an effort is made to smother and to 
check whatever inborn tendencies the child may 
have to find pleasure in the aesthetically uncouth, 
first, by keeping the child's environment free from 
all things coarse, gross and aesthetically offensive; 
and positively by beautifying his environment in 
every way possible. In time, the child's habits in 
respect to the beautiful and the ugly become fixed; 
he has acquired a persistent tendency to take delight 
in the former and to find the latter offensive. 



REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, p. 392. 

McDougall: Social Psychology, Chs. V, VL 

Stout: Manual of Psychology, p. 575 ff. The Groundwork 

of Psychology, Ch. XVIL 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§136-137. 



CHAPTER XVI 

CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 

In chapter III of his Talks on Psychology, James 
outlines the 'old historic divergence of opinion' con- 
cerning- the function of human consciousness. On 
the one side are those who tend ''to estimate the 
worth of a man's mental processes by their effects 
upon his practical life." On the other, are those 
who cherish the view that "man's supreme glory 
is to be a rational being, to know absolute and 
eternal and universal truth." .... If one ac- 
cepts and emphasises the theoretical ideal, "abstrac- 
tion from the emotions and passions, and with- 
drawal from the strife of human affairs would be 
not only pardonable, but praiseworthy; and all that 
makes for quiet and contemplation should be re- 
garded as conducive to the highest human perfec- 
tion." Whereas, from the practical point of view, 
"the man of contemplation would be treated as only 
half a human being, passion and practical resource 
would become once more glories of our race, a con- 
crete victory over this earth's outward powers of 
darkness would appear an equivalent for any 
amount of passive spiritual culture, and conduct 
would remain as the test of every education worthy 
of the name."^ Continuing, James observes that "it 
is impossible to disguise the fact that in the psychol- 

1 Talks to Teachers on Psychology, 1899, p. 23. 

(351) 



352 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ogy of our own day the emphasis is transferred 
from the mind's purely rational function where 
Plato and Aristotle, and what one may call the whole 
classic tradition in philosophy had placed it, to the 
so long neglected practical side." And in particular, 
there is, in modern psychology, strong emphasis of 
the view that our mind's primary function is to aid 
us in getting along in the world. "Our sensations,' 
James continues, 'are here to attract us or to deter 
us, our memories to warn or encourage us, our 
feelings to impel, and our thoughts to restrain our 
behavior, so that on the whole we may prosper and 
our days be long in the land." 

It is foreign to our purpose to enter into a dis- 
cussion of the relative merits or short-comings of 
these two views regarding the ideal human life, or 
as to what constitutes the mind's chief function. 
We may, however, without hesitation accept the 
teaching that one, and, in point of time, the primary 
function of consciousness, both for man and for the 
lower animals, is to guide action in the pursuit of 
practically useful goods. ^ 

We have seen in an earlier chapter that the sim- 
plest form of the nervous system, structurally and 
functionally, consists (1) of sensory cells whose 
function is to receive impressions from the outside 
world, (2) .of central cells which either absorb, 
transmit, or redirect the impulses thus received, and 
(3) motor cells whose function is to arouse activity 
in the muscles or other bodily organs. We saw also 
that the general function of the nervous system is 
to receive impressions from the outer world and to 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 353 

excite the appropriate responses thereto. We have 
found, moreover, that when we pass from a con- 
sideration of the structure and function of the sim- 
plest nervous systems to the highest and most com- 
plex forms as found in man and the higher animals, 
that the general outlines of our description still 
hold good, if amended in one important respect, viz., 
that in the process of organic evolution the central 
nerve cells of the lower forms of animals have un- 
dergone an enormous increase as regards number, 
size, complexity of structure and function. That 
is, we may still say that the nervous system of the 
highest animals, of man, e. g., consists essentially of 
organs for the reception of impressions from out- 
side stimuli, of organs of transmission, redirection 
or modification of the impulses aroused thereby, and 
of motor cells and fibres which excite action in var- 
ious parts of the body. Finally, we may repeat that 
no nervous impulse is ever lost, that every impres- 
sion received by the nervous system works itself out 
sooner or later in a modification of our behavior. 
As Judd remarks : 

"Every nervous current must produce some effect before 
it is dissipated, for a current of energy must do some work, 
it cannot disappear. The effects produced by nervous im- 
pulses are of two kinds. First, the energy may be absorbed 
in the course of its transmission, in which case it will pro- 
duce changes in the condition of the nervous tissue, thus 
contributing to the modification of the structure of that 
tissue. Second, it may be carried to the natural outlet of all 
nervous excitations; namely, the motor channels leading to 
the muscles or other active organs of the body. It will there 
produce some form of muscular or glandular activity. If 

- 23 



354 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

it contributes to changes in structure, these changes in 
structure will ultimately influence new incoming impulses 
which are on the way to the active organs. We may, there- 
fore, say that directly or indirectly, all incoming nervous 
impulses are transmitted to the active organs of the body 
after being more or less completely redirected or partially 
used to produce structural changes in the nervous organs." ' 

Having recalled these elementary teachings of 
biology regarding the structure and function of the 
nervous system, we may proceed to the study of the 
principal forms of animal activity. For convenience 
in description we may classify all individual actions, 
human or brute, as either hereditary or acquired. 
To the former class belong the automatic, reflex, and 
instinctive actions; to the latter, the acquired auto- 
matisms — activities which have become habitual — 
and volitionally controlled actions. These five forms 
of action may be considered in the order named. 

Automatic Movements. — Our account, in order to 
be complete, should include at least brief reference 
to the so-called automatic movements of the organs 
of respiration, circulation, and digestion, as found 
in the higher animals. These movements while not 
directly preceded or accompanied, ordinarily, by 
consciousness are still the source of a rich variety 
of experiences. For example, as we have seen in 
CHAPTER XIV, the sensations and feelings arising 
from the disturbance of the normal functioning of 
these organs form a conspicuous and characteristic 
feature, the body, so to speak, of the emotions as 
described by James and his disciples. Further, as 



^Psychology, 1907, p. 22. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 355 

we have seen in an earlier chapter, these organic 
processes, as the source of a special group of sensa- 
tions, affect the 'tone' of our total consciousness. 
Concerning them and their influence. Stout writes : 

"The heart's beat and its modifications, the constriction 
and dilation of the blood-vessels, breathing, swallowing, the 
secretion of saliva, and the like, are not normally accom- 
panied by distinctly appreciable sensations. I say distinctly 
appreciable sensations, because, in all probability, they do 
in their totality contribute to determine the state of con- 
sciousness as a whole, giving it a certain tone or modality. 
But the effects of the various organic processes blend into a 
vague total experience. Their several effects are not separ- 
ately appreciable. The most we can say is that, as Dr. 
P.lichael Foster puts it, "if the whole of our abdominal viscera 
were removed, we should be aware of the loss as a change in 
our common or general sensibility.' " ' 

Reflex Actions. — Next in order should be men- 
tioned reflex action which may be defined as an im- 
mediate and uniform motor response to an appro- 
priate external stimulus. Instances of the more 
familiar reflexes are, — the expansion and contrac- 
tion of the pupil of the eye with varying degrees of 
illumination, a sleeping person's withdrawal of the 
hand or foot when it is touched, winking or dodging 
in response to a sudden threatening motion, the 
infant's clasping and clinging to objects placed in its 
hand, sneezing and coughing when the mucous mem- 
brane of the nose and throat is irritated, the swal- 
lowing reflex, and the sucking reflex of infants. 

Reflex actions are distinguished from the auto- 
matic actions by the immediacy of the purposes 



lA Manual of Psychology, p. 126 f. 



356 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

which they serve, and by the fact that their stimuli 
are usually outside the organism. Thus under 
normal conditions a threatening motion calls em- 
phatically for immediate action, and the response, 
unless suppressed, occurs at once. The fact that the 
stimuli to reflex action usually lie outside the or- 
ganism does not seem to require illustration. 

Reflex actions are classified by Stout and others 
as either pure reflexes or sensation-reflexes. A pure, 
or physiological, reflex is one which is not accom- 
panied by a definite change in consciousness. For 
example, the pupillary reflex is wholly unconscious ; 
so, also, probably, are the sucking and clasping re- 
flexes of the first days of infancy, while winking the 
eye-lids or jerking the hand away in response to 
threatening or harmful stimuli are accompanied by 
consciousness of varying definiteness and clearness. 
A sensation-reflex, as the name implies, is a response 
to a sensation. The latter is often extremely indef- 
inite and equivocal ; but the fact that an activity 
is preceded or accompanied by consciousness, even 
though it be vague, serves to mark it off from the 
pure, or unconscious, reflexes. Jerking the hand 
away from a hot stove which one touches accident- 
ally, or dodging a missile, may serve as examples 
of sensation-reflexes. In regard to the position of 
reflex actions in the scale of human behavior it is 
clear, to use Judd's words, that "they are primitive 
in character and far removed from voluntary 
choice." 

Certain of the responses of early infancy that are some- 
times described as imitative actions should, perhaps, be 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 357 

classed among the sensation-reflexes. For example, reliable 
observers have reported instances of babies repeating the 
actions of others, e. g., movements of the head and arms, 
protrusion of the lips and tongue, at an age (as early as 
the fourth month in some cases) that precludes the suppo- 
sition that they are conscious, or purposive. They are due, 
apparently, to the fact that in the inherited nervous system 
of the child there is a close functional connection between 
the excitation of certain sensory centres in certain specific 
ways and certain specialized motor responses thereto. 

In reference to the same point Kirkpatrick writes, "The 
extraordinary facility with which children sometimes repro- 
duce sounds which they hear, often without practice, rivaling 
the accuracy of the phonograph, indicates that there must 
be a close relation between the centres for sound perceptions 
and the centres controlling the movement of the vocal organs. 
The facility with which gestures are imitated indicates that 
the visual centres are related to the centres controlling arm 
movements." ^ 

Instincts and Instinctive Action : Definition. — Al- 
though every one knows in a general v^ay what is 
meant by an instinctive action, it is, perhaps, impos- 
sible to give a definition of the term which will be 
entirely free from objections. It will be sufficient 
for our present purposes, however, to say that an 
instinctive action consists of a series of coordinated, 
unlearned acts which, when performed, attain a rel- 
atively definite, though unforeseen end. 

The term 'instinct' is sometimes used as a class name for 
all instinctive actions; at other times, it means the irnpidse, 
or tendency, to act instinctively. Usually, the context will 
tell in which of these two meanings the term is used. 

Instinctive and Reflex Action. — This definition 
will serve to mark off roughly the instinctive actions 
from reflex, volitional, and habitual actions on the 

* Genetic Psychology, 1909, p. 125. 



358 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

one hand and from the emotions on the other. Thus 
we may say, following Angell, that an instinctive 
action differs from a reflexive one mainly in the 
fact that the former involves a number of acts 
which taken together lead up to some adaptive con- 
sequence, such as the building of a nest, the feeding 
of young, and the like; whereas, in reflex action 
the response is simple and immediate. They differ 
also in the fact that while most reflex acts are neither 
preceded nor accompanied by consciousness, many 
instinctive actions, particularly of the higher ani- 
mals, have well marked conscious antecedents and 
accompaniments. For example, the mating, nest- 
building, and migrating instincts of birds are prob- 
ably preceded by a period of unrest and of indefinite 
though intense yearning, due, perhaps, to intra- 
organic changes, the details of which vary from 
instinct to instinct; and they are also accompanied 
probably by alternating satisfaction and dissatis- 
faction according as the course of the action is free 
or impeded. 

Instinctive and Volitional Action. — Instinctive 
differs from volitional action, first, in the fact that 
in the latter the agent is conscious of the purpose 
of the action, Vv^hile in the former, at any rate on its 
first occurrence, the end is unforeseen; second, vol- 
untary actions, as we shall see presently, are depend- 
ent both as to their origination and nature upon 
individual experience, whereas instinctive actions 
are provided for in the inherited structure of the 
individual's nervous system. As the nature of the 
sensations which an animal shall experience is de- 
termined by the structure and action of its sense- 



Consciousness and action 359 

organs, so its instinctive behavior is determined by 
its inherited nervous organization. The machinery, 
so to speak, of the instincts is present at birth, or is 
provided in the natural order of organic growth and 
development, while in volitional action it is acquired 
in the course of the individual's experience. In 
short, volitional actions are actions that are ac- 
quired, learned and that are consciously guided; in- 
stinctive actions arise and run their course inde- 
pendently of both training and conscious guidance. 

Instinct and Habit. — Instinctive and habitual ac- 
tions have a number of common characteristics, but 
they differ in one important respect; namely, the 
former are inherited modes of behavior while the 
latter are acquired during the life-time of the indi- 
vidual. Another statement of this same distinction 
is that instinctive actions result from racial expe- 
rience while habits are the products of individual 
experience. They differ also in the fact that habitual 
actions, as a rule, lack the emotional excitement, the 
physical and mental commotion, that characterize 
many instinctive actions. 

Instinct and Emotion. — Many reactions, human 
or animal, may be classed as either instinctive or 
emotional. Thus if one snatches from a child his 
favorite toy, the child's response is said to be in- 
stinctive if we note merely what he does; or emo- 
tional, if we picture to ourselves his mental state. 
Or, again, if one suddenly comes upon a fear excit- 
ing object, one's actions are said to be instinctive, 
while the mental agitation aroused is called an emo- 
tion. In James' words, "an emotion is a tendency 
to feel [changes in consciousness], and an instinct 



360 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

is a tendency to act characteristically, when in pres- 
ence of a certain object in the environment." 

In respect to the foregoing attempt to mark off 
the instincts from other forms of behavior, it should 
be remembered that the distinctions are drawn more 
or less arbitrarily; further, that many forms of 
animal behavior resist our best efforts to label them 
and tuck them away in our schemes of classification, 
no matter how carefully devised the latter may be. 
For example, shall we classify a fish's impulse to 
dart toward and snap up floating particles, the 
moth's headlong flight into the candle flame, the 
feigning death of certain animals, as reflexes or as 
instincts? And shall we call a boy's play-ground 
battles, or his rush to the circus parade, instinctive 
or volitional phenomena? And as for the distinc- 
tion between instinct and emotion, we have seen 
already that many kinds of behavior which, from 
one point of view, we call instinctive, from another, 
may be described as emotional. 

Characteristics of Instincts. — Having indicated 
the general nature of instinctive actions, and having 
seen how they may be marked off roughly from other 
modes of behavior, we may next consider some of 
their more special characteristics, or attributes. 

(1) Some instincts are delayed in appearing. The 
statement that a given mode of behavior is inborn, 
not acquired, need not mean that it makes its ap- 
pearance immediately after birth. In fact, while 
some instinctive actions are present from the first, 
most of them are more or less delayed. The instinct 
of the newly hatched chick to peck at small objects, 



Consciousness and action 361 

the young robin's instinct to open its mouth to re- 
ceive food which the parent bird brings, the sucking 
instinct of the young of mammals, and others which 
are immediately necessary for the individual's pres- 
ervation make their appearance very early. On the 
other hand, the mating, nest-building and migrating 
instincts of birds are delayed in their appearance 
for weeks or months. Yet the last three named 
forms of behavior are as truly inborn, instinctive, 
as are the first named. 

In this connection, one important difference between the 
human instincts and those of the lower animals may be 
mentioned; namely, that the former, excepting those imme- 
diately necessary to sustain life, are slower in their appear- 
ance than the latter. This is another statement of the fact 
that the period of human infancy is more prolonged, ana 
that human beings reach maturity at a slower rate than do 
the lower animals. And, speaking generally, in regard to 
the time, the order, and the conditions of the appearance of 
the instinctive modes of behavior, we may say that some of 
them are present from birth, that others are more or less 
delayed, and that the time and order of their appearance 
depends upon the needs of the individual organism and of 
the species to which it belongs. 

(2) Instinctive actions are perfected gradually. 
A second characteristic of instinctive actions is that 
they are perfected by slow, almost imperceptible 
steps ; there are no sudden leaps in the development 
of an instinct. Even among the lower forms of ani- 
mal life, the principle of gradual development holds ; 
thus the young bird does not fly with grace and 
strength on the first trial, and the cub-lion is able 
only after practice to stalk and catch his prey. In 



362 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

like manner, the child's impulses to reach and grasp, 
to carry things to the mouth, to creep, to stand alone, 
to walk and talk — all come to perfection gradually. 

"To be sure', as the author has said elsewhere, 'the proc- 
ess is more rapid in some lines than in others; but in the 
most rapid there are no absolute breaks which warrant one 
in saying, 'at this moment a child lacks a certain ability, the 
next he has it'. Hence, when it is said that an ability or 
function seemed to burst forth of a sudden, it should be 
remembered that its sudden appearance was only seeming 
and not actual. Of course, in this general statement one 
excepts such reflex actions as clasping with the fingers, 
sucking, and a few others which are well developed — though 
rarely perfect — at birth." ^ 

The general rule with reference to the maturing 
of the instincts which belong more especially to in- 
fancy holds with reference to those which arise in 
later years. Pugnacity, intellectual curiosity, ac- 
quisitiveness, the hoarding impulse, constructive- 
ness, interest in the other sex, for example, go 
through a period of preparation which is controlled 
in part by the individual's environment, and partly 
by inner growth changes. 

(3) Instincts are interrelated. We saw on a pre- 
ceding page that it is well-nigh impossible to draw 
sharp lines of distinction between instinctive and 
certain other closely related forms of behavior, e. g., 
the reflexes and the acquired automatisms. We 
have now to remark that it is equally difficult to 
distinguish sharply the various forms of instinctive 
action. This difficulty appears when we undertake 



1 First Steps in Mental Growth, p. 9. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 363 

to trace an instinct to its beginnings, to search out 
its earliest forms, and also when we attempt to de- 
termine the factors which are operative in produc- 
ing a given result in a concrete instance of instinct- 
ive behavior. In truth, instinctive actions are so 
intricately interwoven both in their origin and later, 
after they are well established, that the name which 
we apply to a given instance of instinctive behavior 
is somewhat a matter of chance, and in each in- 
stance is determined by the special phase, which, for 
one reason or another, catches our attention. In 
another work, the author has likened the search for 
the beginnings of our several instinctive actions to 
the attempt to trace to their remotest ends the roots 
of a bed of plants whose stems above ground stand 
apart, but which spring from a common root-stock 
or from an inextricable net-work of rootlets. In 
both cases, the search for beginnings, in the strict 
sense of that term, is in vain. 

It was said in the preceding paragraph that the 
close interrelation of the instincts is forced upon 
our attention when we undertake to determine the 
factors in a concrete instance of instinctive behav- 
ior. Suppose, for example, that we seek to account 
for a child's making a collection of beads or of 
arrow-heads. If we follow the lead of the popular 
psychology of instinct we shall be inclined off-hand 
to ascribe this activity to the collecting instinct, and 
leave the matter there ; but it is likely that a closer 
study of the case would bring to light several other 
instinctive factors, e. g., interest in novel or beau- 
tiful objects, and emulation, the desire to do what 



364 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

some one else has done and on a larger scale. Sim- 
ilarly, we may say that most of the plays and games 
of childhood and youth arise from the inter-work- 
ing of a number of native interests, such as the love 
of excitement, enjoyment of companionship, and 
rivalry, in addition to the native delight in mental 
or physical activity. In a word, concrete cases of 
instinctive behavior can rarely be accounted for by 
reference to a single instinct; and the name by 
which we designate, according to their most conspic- 
uous feature or aspect, individual instances of such 
behavior should not obscure their other essential 
features. 

(4) Transitoriness of instincts. Transitoriness is 
characteristic of many instincts, particularly among 
the lower animals ; that is, many instincts ripen at 
a certain age, then fade away unless they are called 
into action by appropriate stimuli, and developed 
into habits. The classic illustration of this charac- 
teristic is that if newly hatched chicks are kept from 
following the mother hen for the first eight or ten 
days, their instinct to respond to her call and to fol- 
low her dies out. This interesting observation, first 
reported by Spalding in what James described as a 
'wonderful article', has been confirmed and supple- 
mented by other observers of animal behavior; and 
it seems to be well established that the instinct to 
follow moving objects, which is strong in the young 
of many species of animals, fades away if its exer- 
cise is delayed too long. Another striking illustra- 
tion of the principle of transitoriness is given by 
James who relates that a Scotch terrier, brought up 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 365 

indoors, "made, when he was less than four months 
old, a very elaborate pretence of burying things, 
such as gloves, etc., with which he had played till he 
was tired." But since the conditions were not pres- 
ent to transmute the burying instinct into a food 
burying habit, the burying impulse was lost. 

These instances may serve as illustrations of the 
transitoriness of the instincts among the lower ani- 
mals. To what extent human instincts are transi- 
tory is a matter about which there is considerable 
difference of opinion. The trend of the current 
teaching, however, is on the side of those who, rea- 
soning by analogy, maintain that since the instincts 
of the lower animals rise and fade away, if at the 
moment of their greatest vivacity the appropriate 
objects for their exercise are not present, we may 
expect a similar law to hold true of man's instincts. 

(5) Instincts differ in strength. We have seen (1) 
that while some instincts are present from the first 
hours or days of life, others are delayed in their ap- 
pearance; (2) that they come to perfection grad- 
ually; (3) that they are closely interrelated, arfd (4) 
that they tend to fade away unless they are exer- 
cised. A fifth characteristic is that instincts differ 
in strength, in the power or energy with which the 
organism acts under them. First, they differ among 
themselves, some instincts being more vigorous and 
imperious than others. For example, the primitive 
forms of the individualistic, or self-preservative, in- 
stincts — feeding, fearing, fighting, and the parental, 
or racial, instincts — mating and caring for offspring 
— are stronger, generally speaking, than sympathy. 



366 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

love of approbation, curiosity, or the collecting and 
constructive instincts, except in those cases where 
the appearance of the former depends upon or in- 
volves the latter. Secondly, many instincts, which 
are present all through life, are normally stronger 
at some periods than at others. Thus, some native 
tendencies have greatest vivacity in childhood, others 
in youth, and still others are characteristic of man- 
hood and womanhood. For example, childhood is 
the period of play and the love of physical activity 
for its own sake, of sensational curiosity, and the 
tendency to imitate others' actions ; youth is marked 
by the social instincts of love of approbation, love of 
society, sympathy and shyness, by the advent of the 
mating instincts, pugnacity, desire for mastery, and 
frequently an intellectual form of curiosity; while 
love of achievement, the struggle for place, power, 
and influence, as well as sympathy and altruism in 
their broader scope, are characteristic of manhood 
and womanhood. 

The pedagogical implications of the foregoing dis- 
tinctions have been impressively set forth by James 
as follows: 

"In children we observe a ripening of impulses and inter- 
ests in a certain determinate order. Creeping, walking, 
climbing, imitating vocal sounds, constructing, drawing, cal- 
culating, possess the child in succession; in some children the 
possession while it lasts may be of a semi-frantic and ex- 
clusive sort. Later the interest in any one of these things 
may wholly fade away." ^ And again in another place he 
writes: "There is a happy moment for fixing skill in draw- 
ing, for making boys collectors in natural history, and pres- 



^ Talks to Teachers on Psychology j p. 61. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 367 

ently dissectors and botanists; then for initiating them into 
the harmonies of mechanics and the wonders of physical and 
chemical law. Later introspective psychology and the meta- 
physical and religious mysteries take their turn; and, last 
of all, the drama of human affairs and worldly wisdom in 
the widest sense of the term." ' 

In the third place, we find enormous differences 
in the strength of the several instincts as we go 
from individual to individual. Thus instinctive pug- 
nacity, fear, play, manipulation, curiosity, love of 
companionship, interest in beautiful objects, or in 
making collections, exist in different children in all 
grades of intensity from the lowest to the highest. 
One child is all pugnacity and courage; another 
flees at the first scent of danger and fights only as a 
last resort. Some children are naturally curious 
about everything, are interested in the beautiful in 
nature and art, and enjoy human society; others are 
seemingly devoid of curiosity, care nothing for beau- 
tiful objects, and would rather spend their days in 
solitude. No doubt education and experience are 
influential in developing and establishing these var- 
iations; nevertheless, differences in the native vigor 
of the instincts are perfectly evident and unequi- 
vocal. And it is equally clear that the immense 
range of differences among grown persons, in re- 
spect to their efficiency and character, is due in large 
measure to the differences in the strength of their 
individual instinctive tendencies. 

(6) Definite and indefinite instincts. Some in- 
stincts are definite, uniform, fixed ; others are indefi- 



1 Text-Book of Psychology ^ p. 405. 



368 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

nite, vague, and variable. The comb-building of 
honey bees, the web spinning of spiders, the nest- 
building of most birds, are examples of instinctive 
actions which are the same, or nearly the same, at 
all times and in all places, and so are said to be 
'lixed' or 'definite'. That is, unaffected by changes 
in place or circumstances, the honey bee builds the 
same kind of honey-comb, the spider weaves the 
same sort of web, the oriole's nest is made in the 
same way, generation after generation. In marked 
contrast with behavior of this determinate, mechan- 
ical sort are the calf's instinct to follow any moving 
object — its mother, a horse, a man — or the chick's 
instinct to peck at all kinds of small objects — 
crumbs of meal, flies, nail heads, bits of yarn, a 
patch of sun-light — or the little child's instinctive 
fear of strange objects, strange cats, dogs, horses, 
persons, which may serve as illustrations of 'indefi- 
nite', 'variable' instincts. The calf's instinct to fol- 
low moving objects, the chick's to peck at small ob- 
jects, the child's native fear of strange things are 
general, not definite, specialized tendencies. If, how- 
ever, calves always followed the mother cow and her 
only, if chicks pecked only at edible worms, if little 
children feared only strange dogs, then we should 
characterize the calf's instinct to follow, the chick's 
to peck, the child's to fear — as fixed, definite, spe- 
cialized. 

The biological meaning of the varying definite- 
ness of instinctive behavior is that if the environ- 
ment of a given animal is simple, and so requires 
only a small number of adjustments for its own 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 369 

preservation and that of its species, then the more 
prominent, relatively, is the animal's stock of defi- 
nite instincts. On the other hand, a complex en- 
vironment, a large variety of necessary adjustments, 
requires a stock of indefinite, variable instincts. Con- 
trast, for example, the relatively simple environ- 
ment of birds and the relatively definite conditions 
of their survival with man's highly complex environ- 
ment and the highly variable conditions of his sur- 
vival. Corresponding to this marked difference, we 
find, on the one hand, the definite nest-building, mi- 
grating, and food-gathering instincts of birds, and 
on the other, a group of highly variable and, indefi- 
nite instincts which control man's activities to pro- 
vide food and shelter. Thus, to give only one illus- 
tration, the impulse to provide a place of shelter for 
the young appears among birds as the definite nest- 
building instinct and in man as the highly variable 
home-building impulse. 

A corollary of the foregoing distinction of in- 
stincts as definite and indefinite is that those ani- 
mals which possess a large number of indefinite in- 
stincts are more educable, and have, other things 
equal, greater possibilities of mental development 
than those whose instincts are definite and invar- 
iable. Indeed, the terms 'definiteness', 'fixedness', 
when applied to instincts, mean that they are un- 
modifiable, and so are not subject to the influences 
of training and education, while 'indefiniteness,' 
'variability' mean the possibility of modification 
through training and experience, 



370 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

No doubt the high degree of educability of children is due, 
in good measure, to the indefiniteness of their instinctive 
curiosity, mental activity, imitativeness, pugnacity, love of 
physical activity, emulation and sociability; or, put in an- 
other way, if these instincts were definite, fixed, instead of 
indefinite and variable, children would be far less educable 
than they are. Contrast, e. g., the curiosity of one of the 
lower animals, say that of a fox, which arises only in relation 
to those things — places of shelter and hiding, enemies, things 
to eat or avoid — which are useful or harmful to him and 
his kind in the struggle for existence, with the curiosity of 
the normal child, his impulse to better cognition, which is, 
within the limits of his experience, unlimited, and constitutes, 
as Kirkpatrick says, the basis of his intellectual development. 

(7) Instincts are modifiable. Closely related to 
indefiniteness which, as we have just seen, is char- 
acteristic of many instincts, is their susceptibility 
to modification, which may occur in any one of three 
ways: (1) they may be suppressed, temporarily or 
permanently, if (a) their exercise is accompanied 
by discomfort, as when a child's impulse to pet a 
dog is met by angry snarls, or when an animal 
learns from experience to shun certain kinds of 
traps; or if (b), according to the principle of tran- 
siency already mentioned, the situations or objects 
which usually evoke them are absent, as when a 
child's love of games and sports and companionship 
fails to appear, or dies out, from lack of exercise. 

(2) Instinctive tendencies are also susceptible to 
modification in that their original direction may be 
changed. Familiar illustrations are — turning a 
boy's inborn pugnacity and his native love of phys- 
ical activity to learning to do useful kinds of work; 
or i"edirecting a child's curiosity about implements 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 371 

of savage warfare to a study of primitive man's 
mode of life, customs, language, religion ; or a teach- 
er's transforming individual rivalry or selfishness 
into loyalty and jealous regard for the good name of 
the class or school to which the individual belongs. 
(3) Instinctive actions tend to pass into habits 
when they are accompanied by satisfaction. Thus, 
to quote two of Thorndike's illustrations : 

"The child who instinctively says baba or mama in its 
mother's presence and is rewarded by parental attention and 
petting, forms the habit of calling her by that name. The 
chick, in the ordinary course of events, follows the hen for 
a few days because of instinct, but from the second time on 
the force of habit combines with that of inner nature; so 
that by the eighth or tenth day (when the instinct, if left 
to itself, would have vanished) the chick continues the now 
habitual act." * 

The Principal Instincts and their Classification. — 
The problem of distinguishing and classifying the 
principal instinctive actions is, for several reasons, 
one of great difficulty. In the first place, these ac- 
tions are, as we saw in the preceding section, so in- 
tricately interwoven that we can hardly hope to cat- 
alogue their various forms so that each shall be 
sharply marked off from all others. Secondly, many 
forms of behavior that are clearly instinctive in one 
species of animals, e. g., the play, or the collecting, 
or the constructive activities of certain animals, are 
not unequivocally instinctive in other species ; hence, 
a description or a classification that is valid for one 
group of animals may not be valid for others. In 

^Elements of Psychology^ 1905, p. 189. 



372 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the third place, it is extremely difficult to attach a 
fixed meaning to the term 'instinct', for the reason, 
already mentioned, that instinctive behavior shades 
by imperceptible degrees into reflex action on the 
one side and into habitual and purposive actions on 
the other. It may also be observed that there is no 
obviously natural principle of classifying instinctive 
actions, and that the classifications proposed by dif- 
ferent authors are based upon principles chosen 
someM^hat arbitrarily, with the result that they are 
widely divergent. 

The catalogue and classification of the instincts 
given in the succeeding paragraphs is a modifica- 
tion of the one proposed by Marshall in his Instinct 
and Reason, and employed with certain changes by 
Kirkpatrick in his Fundamentals of Child Study, 
and later, with some further modification, in his 
Genetic Psychology. 

In these works, instinctive activities are classi- 
fied according to the uses which they subserve. Ac- 
cording to this principle of classification we are able 
to distinguish roughly five classes of instincts: (1) 
the individualistic; (2) the parental; (3) the social, 
which together constitute the group of fundamental, 
or primary adaptive, instincts; (4) the secondary 
adaptive instincts, and (5) a group consisting of 
derived or specialized forms of the fundamental 
modes of instinctive behavior. We shall describe 
the classes in the order named. 

Individualistic or Self-Preservative Instincts. — To 
this class belong all instinctive actions whose pri- 
mary use is the preservation of the individual re- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 373 

acting. "The most fundamental and universal form 
of this instinct," says Kirkpatrick, ''is the tendency 
to contract the body and withdraw from unfavor- 
able stimuli, and to expand or approach toward 
favorable ones." In all animals, except the lowest, 
this general tendency just mentioned is specialized 
into three fairly distinct groups of actions ; first, 
those connected with the feeding process; second, 
those which are of use to the individual in escaping 
danger; third, those useful in fighting enemies or 
rivals; or briefly, the feeding, fearing, fighting, in- 
stincts. 

(i) The Feeding Instinct. — Perhaps the most 
striking feature of this form of animal behavior is 
the enormous variety of devices employed by differ- 
ent species of animals for securing food. Thus, to 
instance only a few of them, the amoeba, which has 
no stomach or mouth, simply wraps itself around its 
food and absorbs the digestible particles; the spider 
weaves a web in which its hapless prey becomes en- 
meshed ; the young robin opens its mouth to receive 
food which is brought to it; the chick or duckling 
runs down and snaps up butterflies and grasshop- 
pers ; the kitten lies in wait for its prey and pounces 
upon it when it appears ; and the young of many of 
our domesticated animals, pigs and calves, e. g., 
search the mother for food in ways which leave no 
doubt as to their instinctive character. 

Almost equally curious are the food-storing activ- 
ities of many species of animals. One example 
from the multitudes which are described in books on 
animal life will suffice. 



374 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

"In the case of the California- woodpecker," write Jordan 
and Kellogg in Evolution and Annual Life, "a large number 
together select a live-oak tree for their operations. They 
first bore its bark full of holes, each large enough to hold 
an acorn. Then into each hole an acorn is thrust. Only one 
tree in several square miles may be selected, and when their 
work is finished all those interested go about their business 
elsewhere. At irregular intervals a dozen or so come back 
with much clamorous discussion to look at the tree. When 
the right time comes, they all return, open the acorns one 
by one, devouring apparently the substance of the nut, and 
probably also the grubs of beetles v/hich have developed 
within. When the nuts are ripe, again they return to the 
same tree and the same process is repeated. In the tree 
figured [in the text] this has been noticed each year since 
1891."' 

(2) Fear. — Fear, the instinct to escape danger, 
according to the authors just quoted, is even more 
varied in its manifestations, than the feeding in- 
stinct. Among the lower animals, the usual modes 
of escaping danger are, — running away, flight, 
crouching and hiding, uttering terrifying sounds, 
and by the use of the defensive weapons for biting, 
scratching, shocking, and stinging. More curious 
are, — feigning death when danger threatens, the 
zigzag flight which many insects employ to elude 
'their pursuers, emitting offensive odors when at- 
tacked, or fluids, which furnish the animal conceal- 
ment from its enemy, assuming a threatening or ter- 
rifying appearance, the instinct of porcupines and 
the European hedgehog to seek protection in their 
thorny armatures. 



1 Evolution and Animal LifSj 1907, p. 433. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 375 

Children's Fears. There are two general causes 
of the fear-reaction in little children: first, strange 
and powerful sense-impressions which shock or jar 
the child's unstable nervous system; and second, 
apprehension, vague or clear, of possible danger. 

(a) Sound Fears. Observers of infancy agree 
that the earliest instances of this reaction are in 
response to loud and sudden noises, such as are made 
by the slamming of doors, the falling of articles of 
furniture, or loud calls. In these cases, we have to 
do not with the instinct of fear, strictly speaking, 
but, as Sully observes, "with an organic phenom- 
enon, with a sort of jar to the nervous system." 

"To understand this," Sully continues, "we have to remem- 
ber that the ear, in the case of man at least, is the sense- 
organ through which the nervous system is most powerfully 
and profoundly acted on. Sounds seem to go through us, to 
shake us, to pound and crush us. A child of four months 
or six months has a nervous organization still weak and 
unstable, and we should naturally expect loud ^sounds to pro- 
duce a disturbing effect on it." ^ 

Volume, or bigness, of sounds is mentioned by a 
number of writers as a property which tends to 
make them fearful. Adults as well as children often 
feel a vague alarm or uneasiness at the roar of a 
storm, the firing of heavy artillery, the noise of a 
big factory, the din of a city street, the noise of 
great volumes of water rushing over a precipice, as 
at Niagara, mainly because of the overwhelming 
nature of the sounds produced. In these cases the 
immediate effect is physical rather than mental ; the 



1 studies of Childhood, p. 197. 



376 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

very bigness of the noise pounds, overwhelms, 
crushes one, producing a "panicky" feeling, although 
one may be well aware all the while that there is no 
danger of physical harm. 

(b) Fear of visible things. We have seen that 
the child's first fear responses are reflex and not 
easily distinguishable from physical shock or jar; 
also that his earliest fear reactions are produced 
by sounds, and that sound is the most fertile source 
01 fear in adults as well as in children. But we also 
instinctively fear visible things which are strange 
or powerful or which are sudden in appearance. 
Thus we have an instinctive dread of strange people, 
strange places, strange animals ; we are frightened, 
at least for an instant, if any one, even our best 
friend rushes upon us from hiding; and powerful 
visual impressions like those produced by great sea 
waves, by the rush of heavy, lowering clouds, a 
violent storm, a great conflagration, the irresistible- 
ness of a great water-fall, the advance of an army 
of soldiers — are terrifying to many persons, and in 
even the stoutest hearts they cause apprehension 
and uneasiness closely akin to fear. 

(c) Fear of animals — "How happens it,' asked 
Preyer,^ 'that many children are afraid of dogs, pigs 
and cats, before they know the dangerous qualities 
of those animals?" How happens it that many chil- 
dren show fear of animals at so early an age that we 
can hardly suppose that the fear is due to ideas of 
possible harm ? The question has been variously an- 
swered. Preyer, Darwin, Hall, James, and others 
believe the early animal fears to be instinctive. Hall, 



^The Mind of the Child, Vol. I. p. 164. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 377 

for example, says of animal fears, "More than any 
others, these fears seem like lapsed reflexes, frag- 
ments and relics of psychic states and acts which 
are now rarely seen in all their former vigor." ' 
Others believe that most, perhaps all, animal fears 
are due in the first instance, either to the strange- 
ness of the animals, or to suggestion of possible 
harm by the speech or actions of the child's com- 
panions. In the first case, animals are looked upon 
as intruders, they disturb the order of things to 
which the child is habituated, or if the animal jumps 
about, frisks, or utters cries of any sort, it becomes 
still more frightful. The writer's observations cause 
him to doubt that children have an instinctive fear 
of particular kinds of animals ; they seem to show, 
on the contrary, that animal fears are either merely 
special cases of the instinctive fear of all strange 
things ; or, are due to suggestion, from some source, 
of possible harm. 

(3) Fighting. — Fighting bears the same relation 
to anger that the group of defensive movements does 
to fear. Popularly stated, whatever arouses an ani- 
mal's anger also excites to action its inherited fight- 
ing machinery. Among the lower animals the most 
general causes of anger, and so of the instinct to 
fight, are the appearance of an enemy, thwarting 
the gratification of native or acquired impulses, the 
infliction of bodily pain, or the interruption of a 
pleasant sense-experience. Additional and special 
causes of anger in man are — interference with his 
plans or purposes, memories of past insults or in- 
juries, and thoughts of possible future ones. 



-'^ Amer. Jour, of Psychology, Vol. VIII, p. 205 



378 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The instinctive modes of fighting are as varied, 
and many of them are as curious, as are the instinct- 
ive modes of securing food or of escaping danger. 
Thus, to instance only the more common ones, ani- 
mals fight by biting, striking, kicking, scratching, 
hooking, butting, stinging, pecking, stamping, 
squeezing, and by hurling missiles. Few brute spe- 
cies employ more than two of these methods of 
assailing their enemies, while man, whom James 
characterizes as in many respects "the most ruth- 
lessly ferocious of beasts," employs almost all that 
are known among the lower animals and many more 
besides of his own devising. 

Parental or Racial Instincts. — The list of racial 
instincts includes the instincts of courtship, fighting 
for mates, the sex impulse, nest-building and home- 
making, guarding and brooding eggs, feeding the 
young and protecting them from their enemies. In 
brief, all instinctive actions which are concerned in 
the reproduction and care of the young belong, to 
this group. It is evident that they, together with 
the individualistic instincts, constitute by far the 
greater part of the activities of the animal world. 

The Social Instincts. — Those animal instincts 
which are developed by group or community life, 
and which are fostered because of their usefulness 
to the group as a group, are called social instincts. 
Three principal ways in which the social instinct is 
manifested may be mentioned: (1) gregariousness, 
the tendency to seek the companionship of others; 
(2) sympathy, the impulse to respond in kind to the 
emotional expressions of others; (3) cooperative- 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 379 

7iess, shown in action with others for a common end, 
and for the good of the group, or society. 

(1) Gregariousness. — Man is sometimes de- 
scribed as the gregarious animal; and Angell de- 
clares that, "the man or child who in one form or 
another does not natively crave companionship . . . 
is essentially insane." Love of companionship is 
also characteristic of many animals whose progen- 
itors banded together in flocks or herds, originally, 
perhaps, for protection and help. "Indeed, the more 
one studies the habits of animals," say Jordan and 
Kellogg, "the more examples of social life and mu- 
tual help will be found. Probably most animals are 
in some degree gregarious in habit." 

(2) Sympathetic action, in so far as it is in- 
stinctive, is expressive of the innate responsiveness 
of an animal to the emotional expressions of its com- 
panions. Stated otherwise, the instinctive sympa- 
thetic responses of certain of the higher animals 
and of man depend upon the fact that their organ- 
isms are partially tuned to respond in kind to cer- 
tain emotional expressions that are characteristic of 
their species. An instinctive emotional expression 
by one member of a species tends to awaken a sim- 
ilar action in other present members of the species. 
For instance, the spread of the flight impulse, and 
its correlative, fear, in a flock, herd or crowd, is 
often due to this inherited tendency. One animal of 
a flock or herd gives what is for the species a danger 
signal, e. g., utters a characteristic warning cry, and 
instantly all of its members take to flight or shelter. 
"Children,' Kirkpatrick remarks, 'readily cry in ter- 



380 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

ror, or laugh with glee when those around do so.'' 
The so-called 'expressions' of the emotions of anger, 
love, joy, grief, disgust, and perhaps others of the 
'coarser' emotions, are contagious in this way; so 
that we may, within limits, speak of the contagion 
of both emotion and instinct. 

(3) Cooperativeness. — The instinct to act for 
the good of the social group is seen in its simplest 
and most striking forms in the communal life of the 
social bees, ants, and wasps where 'the division of 
labor is such that the individual is dependent for 
its continual existence on the community as a whole ; 
and also in those instances of animals banding to- 
gether for temporary advantage, as when a pack of 
wolves cooperate to obtain food, when beavers unite 
to build a dam, or in the curious group activity 
sometimes employed by pelicans in catching fish. 

Authorities are fairly well agreed that the activ- 
ities enumerated in the foregoing paragraphs should 
be classed among the instincts. The food-gathering 
and food-storing activities, modes of fighting, of 
escaping danger, the parental impulses, gregarious- 
ness, responsiveness to an animal group's character- 
istic emotional expressions, are, at any rate on their 
first occurrence, and among most animals, quite cer- 
tainly instinctive. But when we pass to the study 
of such activities as play, imitativeness, construct- 
iveness, acquisitiveness, communicativeness, bodily 
adornment, and certain others, we encounter a wide 
diversity of opinion, the grounds whereof were men- 
tioned on page 371 f. The nature of the difl?iculty 
in respect to these activities can be made clearer by 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 381 

two or three examples. The play activities, for in- 
stance, of some animals are undoubtedly instinctive ; 
one cannot observe the play of kittens, calves, lambs, 
puppies, and doubt that they are determined by their 
inherited nervous organizations. But it is not so 
clear that the play of little children is instinctive, 
although it is only one step removed from tenden- 
cies and capacities which are pretty certainly so. 
The same observation holds in reference to the con- 
structive and collecting activities. Among certain 
of the lower animals, e. g., birds, bees, beavers, ants, 
spiders, constructiveness is a genuinely instinctive 
mode of behavior. The collecting impulse, or ac- 
quisitiveness, is no less certainly instinctive in many 
species of animals, and it occurs sometimes entirely 
apart apparently from any relation it might have to 
the animal's bodily needs. But it is extremely doubt- 
ful if constructiveness and acquisitiveness should be 
included in a list of human instincts, although they 
too are built upon tendencies and capacities that are 
themselves most assuredly innate. 

With these reservations and restrictions in refer- 
ence to the use of the term instinctive in describing 
or accounting for a given form of behavior, let us 
turn next to the two remaining groups of our list. 

Secondary Adaptive Instincts. — All instinctive 
actions have been useful in the struggle for exist- 
ence and so have adaptive value, otherwise they 
would not have been preserved. The groups already 
considered — the individualistic, the parental, and 
the social instincts — seem, however, to be directly 
and immediately valuable in the animals' struggle 



382 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

with their environment, so have been designated the 
'primary' adaptive instincts. Two other forms of 
instinctive behavior — play and curiosity — are also 
adaptive in function ; but since their adaptive value 
is not so immediate or direct as that of the instincts 
included in our first three classes, they may be called 
the 'secondary' adaptive instincts. 

(1) Play. — Efforts to explain play activities 
have given rise to a number of theories, the best 
known ones being those of Spencer, an English 
philosopher; Groos, a German investigator, and 
Hall, an American psychologist. Spencer's theory 
that play results from the superabundance of energy 
of childhood and youth, though still the popular 
explanation of the origin of the play activities, has 
been given up by the more careful students, who 
accept either Groos' theory or Hall's, or a combina- 
tion of these. Groos' theory is, in brief, that the 
play of animals and of man is closely related to and 
determined by their general instinctive endowment, 
and that when playing an animal "uses the same 
powers that his ancestors have used in gaining food, 
avoiding enemies, and securing the perpetuation of 
the species, and thus exercises the powers he will 
himself need to use when no longer protected by 
parental care."^ 

Concerning Groos' theory. Hall writes: 

"The view of Groos that play is practice for future adult 
activities is very partial, superficial, and perverse. It ignores 

the past where lie the keys to all play activities In 

place of this mistaken and misleading view, I regard play as 



1 KiRKPATRicK, Child study, p. 147, 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 383 

the motor habits and spirit of the past of the race, per- 
sisting in the present, as rudimentary functions sometimes 
of and always akin to rudimentary organs .... In play 
every mood and movement is instinct with heredity. Thus 
we rehearse the activities of our ancestors, back we know 
not how far, and repeat their life work in summative and 
adumbrated ways. It is reminiscent, albeit unconsciously, of 
our line of descent; and each is the key to the other. The 
psycho-motive impulses that prompt it are the forms in which 
our forbears have transmitted to us their habitual activ- 
ities." ' 

The principal difference between the theories of 
Groos and Hall seems to be that the former regards 
the play of the young as a preparation for adult 
activities, while the latter sees in play merely an 
echo of long past racial experiences. Groos thinks 
play is a kind of looking forward to the future; 
Hall, that it is reminiscent of a far distant past. 
Groos lays emphasis on the use, or adaptive func- 
tion, of the play activities; Hall is content to point 
out merely that play is a rehearsal of ancestral ac- 
tivities ; he ignores the question as to whether it is 
or is not useful. We may accept both theories : 
Hall's as to the origin of play, and Groos' as to the 
function which it serves in animal life. 

(2) Curiosity. — Curiosity may be defined as 
hunger for new experiences, as the desire to secure 
and to test new sensations, as 'an impulse toward 
better cognition.' It is pretty evident that an ani- 
mal that possesses this impulse, provided it is prop- 
erly checked by caution or timidity, has an advan- 
tage in the struggle for existence over an animal 
that lacks it. The former will learn more about 



1 Youth, 1908, p. 73 f, 



384 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

the advantageous and dangerous features of its en- 
vironment — about things to eat or to avoid, places 
of hiding, enemies to shun — and so becomes more 
quickly adapted to its surroundings, than the latter. 
The adaptive value of curiosity to childhood is still 
more evident. As Kirkpatrick remarks, 'necessity 
is a great teacher, but curiosity is a greater teacher 
in early life' ; and the story of man's struggle for 
masterj^ over nature is, in large part, a narrative 
of his achievements under the guidance of his intel- 
lectual curiosity. 

"^ Derived or Specialized Instincts. — This group in- 
cludes a number of specialized forms of the funda- 
mental, or primary adaptive, instincts. Among the 
most prominent of these derived forms of behavior 
are: (1) the collecting impulse, or acquisitiveness, 
the tendency to make collections of all sorts of 
things; (2) the manipulating impulse, or the con- 
structive and destructive tendencies; (3) the in- 
stinct of adornment; (4) the migratory instinct; 
(5) the expressive instinct, the impulse to commu- 
nicate one's ideas and feelings to one's companions. 
As the group-name indicates, these forms of be- 
havior originated probably in the fundamental in- 
stincts. For example, the collecting and the manip- 
ulating instincts were developed from the food- 
gathering, food-storing, and home-making activ- 
ities; and the instinct to communicate to othetrs 
one's feelings and ideas originated in the experience 
that signs, gestures, or vocal sounds, which are in- 
dicative of advantageous or dangerous features of 
the animal environment, were useful in the struggle 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 385 

for existence. In their later development, the re- 
sultant instincts are so closely related to others that 
their identity is somewhat obscured. The collect- 
ing impulse, for instance, as found in man is often 
prompted and supported by emulation and by aes- 
thetic or play interests ; that is, many of the col- 
lections which men make are prompted by rivalry 
or by the desire to gratify some aesthetic or play 
interest. Again, many of the constructive activ- 
ities, so-called, of little children, e. g., in building a 
house or bridge of blocks, may also be described, at 
least from the point of view of the on-looker, as 
either play or imitative behavior, since in fact the 
children are playing, and they are imitating the 
actions of older persons. 

Habit: Definition. — Any fixed mode of behavior 
which a person has acquired by practice or repeti- 
tion is called a 'habit'. Instances of what in every- 
day life we call 'personal habits' abound on all sides. 
We have habits of walking, of greeting our friends, 
of taking our meals, of clothing our bodies, of sign- 
ing our names, of thinking and feeling about the 
various questions and problems which we meet from 
day to day. So dominant a feature is habit in the 
lives of most grown persons that their round of 
daily activities is made up in large measure of ac- 
tions performed as habit decrees. 

Man's most conspicuous habits are bodily, or 
physical, in character. Thus the drink habit, the 
tobacco habit, habits of carrying the body in walk- 
ing, habits of speech, mannerisms and idiosyncra- 
sies of one kind or another usually come to mind 



386 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

when one asks for examples of human habits. But 
man, particularly civilized man, has also innumer- 
able mental habits, i. e., fixed tendencies of feeling, 
thinking, resolving, in given situations. Moreover, 
man possesses many habits that are partly mental 
and partly physical in character; they cannot be 
definitely classed in either group. Examples are — 
playing a musical instrument, oral reading, spelling 
and writing in easy composition. 

The sway of habit is seen not only in human conduct but 
also in the behavior of the lower animals. Thus domesti- 
cated animals acquire habits of expecting food and shelter 
at certain times and places, of responding in fixed ways to 
the master's voice, of liking or disliking their brute com- 
panions. Wild animals make their way to the same places 
from day to day in search of food and shelter, and to escape 
from their habitual enemies. 

The Conditions of Habit Formation, — There are 
three general conditions of the formation of habits 
in living things. First, the law of nature that 
things tend to act as they have acted before. Sec- 
ond, habit formation in animate things depends 
upon the plasticity of the organic materials of which 
they are composed. By 'plasticity' is meant, to use 
James' words, "the possession of a structure weak 
enough to yield to an influence, but strong enough 
not to yield all at once. Organic matter, especially 
nervous tissue', James observes, 'seems endowed 
with a very extraordinary degree of plasticity of 
this sort." As a third condition of the formation 
of habits in living things, physiologists cite also the 
law that living organs tend to grow to the mode in 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 387 

which they are habitually exercised. Thus if the 
muscles are practiced in the performance of an act 
of skill, the growth processes tend often 'to corro- 
borate and fix the impressed modification.' Espe- 
cially in growing and plastic bodies, the growth 
changes which occur during the period of recuper- 
ation following intensive practice — say in running 
a scale on the piano, in learning to operate a tele- 
graph instrument, or to write a given script — con- 
sist, in part, in building up and strengthening the 
tissues involved in the exercise. This accounts for 
the fact, frequently noted, that in acquiring the 
manual arts one's skill increases as if by a sudden 
leap during the period of rest following a period 
of hard practice, so that when the exercise is re- 
sumed the learner finds himself much more profi- 
cient than when the practice was discontinued. The 
observation of this fact has led a German author, 
quoted by James, to say "that we learn to swim 
during the winter and to skate during the summer." 
Habit and Instinct. — In the paragraph on 'the 
transitoriness of instincts', it was said that under 
given conditions instincts tend to pass into habits. 
The principal condition of this transition is that an 
instinctive action shall yield satisfaction; if, on the 
other hand, it yields dissatisfaction, it is inhibited 
or fades away. The principle of control, and the 
process by which instincts, at first vague and indefi- 
nite, pass, through exercise, into fixed habits of be- 
havior are illustrated in Morgan's account of his 
chicks acquiring the habit of pecking at and swal- 
lowing desirable objects and of avoiding undesir- 



388 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

able ones. At first, the chicks pecked indiscrimi- 
nately at whatever was placed before them — bits 
of yarn, match heads, tacks, worms edible and in- 
edible — any small object that stood out from its 
surroundings ; but they soon learned from expe- 
rience which ones produced agreeable gustatory re- 
sults and which disagreeble ones ; and they formed 
the habit of picking up and swallowing the former 
and of avoiding the latter.^ 

Thorndike's report, which follows, of a kitten's 
method of learning to open the door of a cage, in 
which it was confined, in order to get food, affords 
another excellent illustration of the way in which 
habits are developed from instincts : 

"If we take a box twenty by fifteen by twelve inches, 
replace its cover and front side by bars an inch apart, and 
make in this front side a door arranged so as to fall open 
when a wooden button inside is turned from a vertical to a 
horizontal position, we shall have means to observe another 
simple case of learning. A kitten, three to six months old, 
if put in this box when hungry, a bit of fish being left out- 
side, reacts as follows: It tries to squeeze through between 
the bars, claws at the bars and at loose things in and out of 
the box, reaches its paws out between the bars, and bites 
at its confining walls. Some one of all these promiscuous 
clawings, squeezings, and bitings turn round the wooden 
button, and the kitten gains freedom and food. By repeating 
the experience again and again, the animal gradually comes 
to omit all the useless clawings, etc., and to manifest only 
the particular impulse (e. g., to claw hard at the top of the 
button with the paw, or to push against one side of it with 
the nose) which has resulted successfully. It turns the 
button round without delay whenever put in the box. It has 



^Morgan, An Introduction to Comparative Psychology^ 1902, 
Chs. V. XII. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 389 

formed an association between the situation, 'confinement in 
a box of a certain appearance,' and the impulse to the act of 
clawing at a certain part of that box in a certain definite 
way." ' 

The same principle, namely, that instinctive ac- 
tions which bring satisfaction are selected and that 
those which bring discomfort or are useless are 
eliminated, explains why certain special forms of a 
child's instinctive behavior pass into habits and why 
certain others disappear. For example, a child may 
either grab and cry for articles of food at the table, 
or he may imitatively ask politely for them. In the 
former case, he is either punished or his request 
is denied; in the latter, he gets the food, and also 
praise and smiles of approval. In time, the child 
learns to inhibit the grabbing-crying for food im- 
pulses and to employ the socially approved methods 
of securing these goods. In brief, to repeat in sub- 
stance, the general principle formulated by Thorn- 
dike: any form of behavior which, in a given situ- 
ation, results pleasurably tends to recur upon the 
recurrence of the situation; and further that any 
form of behavior which, in a given situation, brings 
discomfort is likely to be inhibited on the recur- 
rence of the situation. 

The Nature of Voluntary Action. — A simple vol- 
untary action consists of three easily discernible fac- 
tors: (1) an image or idea of the action itself or 
of its total or partial results — the initial factor; 
(2) the desire that the action or result thus imaged 
or thought of shall follow; (3) the conscious control 



'^ Elements of Psychology, 1905, p. 201 f. 



390 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

of the muscular movements appropriate thereto. 
Thus in such simple actions as signing one's name, 
or playing a musical chord, or pitching a ball — if 
they are really voluntary — we have foresight of 
the end to be attained, we desire that end, and we 
consciously set about its attainment. We may next 
consider briefly each of these three main factors. 

Foresight of the purpose of the action. — We 
have said that the initiative factor of a voluntary 
action may be an image or an idea either of the 
action itself or of its results. For example, one may 
picture either pulling the gun-trigger or hitting the 
mark, swinging the ax or the tree's falling. In the 
voluntary actions of the normal adult, the idea of 
the result to be attained is the principal controlling 
and initiating factor. When, for instance, the stu- 
dent pays out money to get a book or to have a place 
to room and board or to see a ball game, the end of 
the action is the determining factor. Occasionally, 
however, the purpose which controls a voluntary 
action is an image or idea of the action itself. The 
behavior of children affords numerous instances of 
actions of this sort, e. g., blinking, altering the rate 
of breathing, clinching the fists, odd gestures, antics 
of all kinds which terminate in the child's own body, 
and which have no purpose beyond themselves. 

Desire as a factor in voluntary action. — We have 
seen in the preceding paragraph that a simple vol- 
untary act includes as an essential factor an idea of 
varying clearness of the action itself or of its result ; 
there must be foresight of the outcome of the action. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION ^91 

But evidently it includes more than this anticipatory 
factor, since we foresee many of our actions which 
are in no sense voluntary. For instance, we may 
clearly foresee that we shall continue breathing so 
long as life lasts, that we shall perform countless 
actions from sheer habit, that we shall show grief 
when misfortune befalls us, that we shall eat when 
hungry and rest when weary, but we do not call 
these actions voluntary. In addition to the factor 
of foresight, an action in order to be voluntary must 
be definitely desired. And in order that an action 
shall be desired the image or thought thereof must 
touch our feelings in some way, or it must be related 
to some of our inborn tendencies, or it must accord 
with a previously formed plan. Stated otherwise, 
the action must either be clustered over with a tone 
of pleasantness or unpleasantness, or it must grow 
out of some of our instinctive longings, or it must 
be congruous with some earlier conceived purpose. 
To illustrate: the idea of obtaining a university de- 
gree or of visiting a foreign country arouses desire 
because the idea has a pleasurable feeling tone; 
again, the dislike of being beaten by a difficulty or 
of being surpassed by one's fellow students gets part 
of its character from the impulse of pugnacity, or 
mastery, in the one case and from our native im- 
pulse to emulation in the other; and the desire to 
draw a check in payment of a debt traces back either 
to one's habit of paying one's debts or to the earlier 
intention to pay this particular one. 



392 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

The term 'desire' as used here includes both its positive 
form, as the desire for good health, friends, etc., and also 
its negative form, 'aversion', with w^hich, in ordinary speech, 
desire is contrasted. This seems warranted since aversion 
to, the recoil from, a disagreeable thing is in fact a desire 
to get rid of it. Our meaning is substantially the same 
whether we say that we are averse to the tooth-ache, to 
foggy weather, to unfriendly criticism, or that we desire 
painless teeth, fair weather, the good opinion of our fellows. 

The motor factor. — We have seen that a voluntary 
action involves, first, an idea of the end to be at- 
tained — the initiating feature and the principal 
factor of control; second, a sense of the value of 
the foreseen end, which we may call the sustaining 
factor. We may consider next the motor factor, i. 
e., the method whereby the appropriate movements 
are guided to the attainment of the desired end. 

In the everyday life of the normal adult the motor 
features of voluntary actions are controlled chiefly, 
though not exclusively, by visual, auditory, and kin- 
sesthetic sensations, perceptions and images. The 
manner in which these factors operate to control 
simple voluntary actions may be seen from two sim- 
ple experiments : 

First, select a point on the floor of your study-room eight 
or ten feet distant from where you are sitting. Call this 
point a mark. Then watch carefully the factors which con- 
trol your tossing some object, such as an eraser, a nail, or 
a coin, so that it will light on the mark. The guiding factors 
will be found to be, first and chiefly, the fixation of the eyes 
on the mark which controls the direction of the toss; second, 
one may detect sensations from the hand and arm, which 
serve to gauge the amount of exertion required. That is, the 
factors which control such a movement are — the perception 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION S93 

of the mark, and a group of kinagsthetic sensations from the 
muscles, tendons, and joints of hand and arm. As a second 
experiment, let the student observe the factors present in 
recalling and singing a half-forgotten melody. He may, pos- 
sibly, first recall some of the words as they would look in 
print or sound when spoken; next he may hear, in the mind's 
ear, some of the notes or measures; at the same time he may 
have, possibly, sensations of strain and twitching from the 
muscles of the throat and the vocal cords. That is, it is pos- 
sible that all three factors — the visual, auditory, and kinaes- 
thetic, shall operate in the control of the voice. But, as is 
well known, the manner in which singing is started and con- 
trolled differs greatly among individuals. Thus one person 
guides his voice mainly by the imaged tones, another by a 
visual image of the printed music, a third by a group of 
sensations mainly from the throat and vocal cords. The 
type of control which is employed in a given case will depend 
in part upon the singing habits and training of the individ- 
ual, and in part upon his characteristic image-processes — 
whether visual, auditory, kinsesthetic, or mixed. The results 
of these experiments may be taken as typical of what one 
finds upon analysis of the motor side of any simple voluntary 
action. We may next consider some of the ways in which 
our volitional activity is complicated. 

Deliberation. — We have observed on several occa- 
sions that the attempt to isolate and detach elements 
or features of a total experience, for purposes of 
better scrutiny and description, is likely to result in 
a partial and distorted view of the actual course of 
events. This observation is pertinent in respect to 
our study of simple voluntary action, since, as is 
obvious enough, such actions do not arise, in real 
life, uninfluenced by antecedent events, and since a 
full explanation of a given voluntary act must in- 
clude an historical account of its forerunners. In 



S94 Elements of psychology 

fact our voluntary actions, as is frequently re- 
marked, are expressions of our total character; 
they have a long history which traces back through 
the influences and activities of all our past life to 
our individual native endowments. But leaving 
aside this more comprehensive view of volitional 
actions, we may pass at once to the study of Delib- 
eration which, in the opinion of many psychologists, 
is a characteristic of all voluntary action. 

We must first distinguish deliberation from the 
simple conflict or rivalry of incompatible instinctive 
tendencies. The latter may be found at a relatively 
early stage of mental development, e. g., in the 
actions of little children and in the behavior of many 
of the lower animals. Darwin's well-known descrip- 
tion of the behavior of a cage-full of monkeys when 
a paper bag containing a small snake was placed in 
their cage, gives us a striking picture of the oper- 
ation of the contrary impulses of curiosity and tim- 
idity.^ Other familiar illustrations of the conflict 
of simple impulsive tendencies are seen in a little 
child's desire to pat a strange dog and his fear of 
him, and in the fox's greed and his suspicion of the 
baited trap. In these cases of conflict of impulse 
with impulse, we have one of the first signs of what 
James has described as the 'masking' of the real 
nature of our instincts. But we should not call them 
cases of deliberation. The latter process presup- 
poses a much higher stage of intellectual develop- 
ment than the simple push and pull of conflicting 
impulses. In its simplest form, deliberation pre- 



1 The Descent of Man, 1871, Vol. I, p. 42. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 395 

supposes at least some effort to foresee the imme- 
diate consequences of the various proposed actions; 
in its more highly developed form, we ask how each 
of the several possible actions, if realized, would 
affect our entire future, how they accord with our 
larger plans and purposes, e. g., our purpose to 
secure a college education, or our ideals of personal 
character. Our first observation then is that deliber- 
ation is to be distinguished sharply from the oscil- 
lation between conflicting instinctive tendencies. 
We may next inquire more fully as to its chief 
characteristics. 

In actual life, deliberation occurs in a vast variety 
of forms and with many complications. Ordinarily, 
however, its distinctive features are readily deter- 
mined. It is sometimes described as a mental see- 
saw, as a series of attentions to two or more con- 
flicting possibilities. Now one alternative, now an- 
other appears vividly in consciousness and we are 
alternately attracted and repelled by each. It con- 
sists, in Titchener's words, of "an active weighing 
of motives .... a series of judgments or of 
active imagings" in regard to the conflicting pur- 
poses. We compare their values as possible sources 
of pleasure or pain, good or evil. These weighings, 
comparisons, judgments, constitute the thought 
phase of deliberation. The process has also a feeling 
side which may be either of pleasantness or of un- 
pleasantness. If the conflict is accepted as a matter 
of course, or is regarded as an inescapable affair, 
one's attitude may be, temporarily, one of either res- 
ignation or despair ; or if the situation does not de- 



396 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

mand an immediate solution, and if neither weal 
nor woe, prosperity nor ruin, is a possibility of the 
final outcome, that is, if we think the decision when 
it does come will not greatly affect our fortunes 
either for good or for ill, we may even delight in the 
difficulty and the intellectual gymnastic which it 
affords. If, however, an immediate decision is de- 
manded, or if it is foreseen that the decision when it 
does come will be of momentous import for all our 
future, then we may experience the disagreeable 
emotions of confusion, anxiety, or even of what 
James calls 'the dread of the irrevocable'. The state 
of deliberation is also marked by the feeling of effort 
which may be either pleasant or painful ; the former 
when we are confident of our ability to find the right 
solution to our problem and painful when our cour- 
age pales. 

Decision. — The principal ways in which cases of 
deliberation are concluded and decisions reached, 
'the chief types of decision', they were called by 
James, are three. To the first type, belong those 
decisions which follow the calm and persistent bal- 
ancing of the advantages and disadvantages of the 
several possible courses of action. After a period 
of careful weighing and measuring, one course 
seems so clearly better than any other that the de- 
cision seems like following the line of least resist- 
ance. We may acknowledge the merits of the re- 
jected possibilities ; but we believe that those of the 
accepted one are so definitely superior that we go 
forward cheerfully and confidently in the execution 
of our plans. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 397 

In a second type, deliberation, strictly speaking, 
has reached a dead-lock and has ceased; neither 
side preponderates, we have a drawn battle, and 
our decision hangs in the balance. Then some 
chance occurence, often trivial in itself, tips the 
scales and our destiny is fixed. For example, the 
writer knows a case in which a young man had con- 
sidered long and earnestly which of three colleges 
he would attend, but was unable to reach a decision 
until he was told that a certain man, whom he 
greatly admired, attended a certain one of them a 
half century before. That ended the matter; he 
would go there. 

A third type of decision is characterized by 
marked feelings of effort and anxiety. Circum- 
stances demand some sort of a decision and one is 
made. Meantime we are sure that we are sacrificing 
possible goods, and we are tortured by the fear that 
our choice may work out disastrously. Of this type 
of decision James writes : 

"Whether it be the dreary resignation, for the sake of 
austere and naked duty, of all sorts of rich mundane de- 
lights, or whether it be the heavy resolve that of two 
mutually exclusive trains of future fact, both sweet and 
good, and with no strictly objective or imperative principle 
of choice between them, one shall forevermore become impos- 
sible, while the other shall become reality, it is a desolate 
and acrid sort of act, an excursion into a lonesome moral 
wilderness. If examined closely, its chief difference from the 
. . . . former cases appears to be that in those the mind, 
at the moment of deciding on the triumphant alternative, 
dropped the other one wholly or nearly out of sight, whereas 
here both alternatives are steadily held in view, and in the 
very act of murdering the vanquished possibility the chooser 



398 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

realizes how much in that instant he is making himself lose. 
It is deliberately driving a thorn into one's flesh; and the 
sense of inward effort with which the act is accompanied is 
an element which sets [this] type of decision in strong con- 
trast with the previous varieties, and makes of it an alto- 
gether peculiar sort of mental phenomenon." ^ 

The Consciousness of Effort. — The consciousness 
of effort, which, as we have seen, is present in both 
deliberation and decision, calls for a few further 
words. Every one knows in a general way the 
nature of this experience since it is a conspicuous 
feature of our daily life. Mental or physical strain, 
exertion, struggle, up-hill work, wearing toil, are 
the experiences which readily come to one's mind 
as 'effort's' congeners. But the questions of the 
origin of the consciousness of effort, and of what it 
is in its innermost nature, are matters about which, 
as James, says, 'the gravest difference of opinion 
prevails. Questions as momentous as that of the 
very existence of spiritual causality, as vast as that 
of universal predestination or free-will, depend on 
its interpretation'.- More particularly, the question 
in debate is : Does the consciousness of effort con- 
sist, in part at least, of a consciousness of mental 
activity? is it made up partly of the awareness of 
the presence and work of a spiritual force called the 
'Will'? or does the feeling of effort consist entirely 
of a mixture of sensations from contracting muscles, 
tendons, labored breathing, accelerated heart action, 
and other bodily changes? 



^Principles of Psychology, II, p. 534. 
*0p. cit., II; 535. 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 399 

In order to avoid confusion in considering this 
question, we must first distinguish very sharply, 
as Angell says, in substance, between the question as 
to the fact of mental activity of the volitional kind 
and the question as to what are the conscious rep- 
resentatives of this activity.^ There can be no doubt 
as to the former; it is a feature of every act of 
deliberation, of every decision, every determination 
to act or not to act, as well as of all our overt, voli- 
tional actions. The controversy is in regard to the 
second question, namely, are we conscious in voli- 
tional actions of the activity of a 'Will' over and 
above a mass of sensations, feelings, ideas, judg- 
ments ? And is the consciousness of mental activity 
an unique and essential factor of the consciousness 
of effort? In regard to this question, it must be said 
that the weight of introspective testimony is against 
the presence of such additional conscious factor, and 
in favor of the view that the consciousness of effort 
is due entirely to the sensations which originate in 
the action of the muscles, joints, tendons, organs of 
respiration, circulation and possibly other vaso- 
motor processes. 

It is clear that this way of conceiving of the nature and 
origin of the feeling of effort, that is, to reduce it to a mass 
of bodily sensations plus a feeling-tone of pleasantness or 
unpleasantness, inevitably leads to our classing it among the 
emotions; and this some writers, e. g., Angell, definitely do. 
In that case, we may say, paraphrasing James' chief argu- 
ment in support of his theory of the emotions, "if we strip 
from the feeling of effort the sensations arising from the 
harder breathing, the heightened heart action, the tense, 
swelling muscles, we shall find that our feeling of effort has 



^Psychology, 428. 



400 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

evaporated. . . A disembodied consciousness of effort is a 
sheer non-entity." 

The Conditions of Effort. — Leaving out of account 
the feeling of effort due to the performance of mere 
physical feats, such as climbing a steep mountain, 
swimming against the current, or lifting a heavy 
weight, we may next enumerate certain additional 
conditions of effort, or of conflict, which, as was 
said, is its most general condition. We have just 
seen that deliberation and decision are frequently 
attended by marked feelings of effort. In both, the 
conflict is either between our impulsive, or habitual 
tendencies on the one hand and ideal motives on the 
other or between ideal motives which are equally 
attractive but which are seen to be incompatible. 

Earliest in appearance and perhaps simplest in 
form is the effort experienced when one, for pru- 
dential reasons, resists a strong inborn impulse. A 
familiar example is the effort a boy feels when he 
resists, from fear of punishment or from a sense 
of duty, the impulse to follow his play instincts and 
sticks to an assigned piece of work which he dis- 
likes. Indeed, the whole round of lessons in self- 
restraint which the child must learn are so many 
occasions of the feeling of effort. Briefly, the inhi- 
bition of our more imperious racial tendencies is the 
first and most evident condition of this experience. 

In the second place, effort is experienced when 
we endure pain for the sake of future good, or to 
escape a greater pain, as when one clinches his fists 
and braces himself to undergo a dental operation in 
order to have sound teeth, to lessen the chances of 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 401 

impaired digestion, or to escape the reproach of 
having toothless gums. 

In the third place, effort is felt when we are 
required to act contrary to our habitual modes of 
acting. This principle finds application in situa- 
tions differing as widely as using a fork in eating 
when one's habit is to use a knife and assuming a 
reverential attitude in a religious ceremony when one 
is commonly irreverent in regard to things religious. 
It accounts in part for our awkwardness in social 
gatherings, for our anxiety when suddenly called 
upon to act in novel situations, in short, for the con- 
fusion and perturbation we experience whenever 
our habitual modes of behavior, personal or profes- 
sional, our accustomed manner, attitudes or emo- 
tional responses are inadequate to, or are out of har- 
mony with, the demands of the moment. 

Fourth, the consciousness of effort arises when 
one is required to choose one of two incompatible 
ideal courses of action. Much of life's mental dis- 
tress grows out of conflicts of this kind. The good 
citizen desires the rigid enforcement of the law; 
but this would enmesh some of his best personal 
friends, so he hesitates. The young man wishes to 
enter the missionary field, but this would require 
him to leave his aged parents. Brutus would serve 
both his friend and benefactor, Csesar, and Rome 
which he loves so well : 

'The genius and the mortal instruments 
Are then in council; and the state of man. 
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then 
The nature of an insurrection,' 

'i'26 



402 ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOLOGY 

Internal Volitional Activity. — Thus far, our ac- 
count of volitional activity has pertained chiefly to 
bodily movements, such as mowing the lawn, making 
a journey, or going to college, external voluntary 
actions as they are sometimes called. We must now 
supplement this partial view by a brief account of 
the inner or internal voluntary actions, that is, the 
volitional control of the changes in the stream of 
our mental life. If we compare internal voluntary 
actions with external ones, we find that they differ 
merely in the fact that whereas, in the latter, the 
controlling and sustaining ideas relate to some sort 
of bodily action or its result, in the former, they per- 
tain primarily to mental changes, to mental processes 
which are only indirectly, and sometimes remotely, 
related to bodily actions. As examples of the voli- 
tional control of our mental processes, one thinks, 
first, of the recollection of forgotten data, e. g., the 
names of persons and places, or the details of some 
event in our past lives, or certain facts of history, 
literature, or science. In these cases, we speak of 
'willing' to recall the forgotten items. Next, one 
might instance 'thinking' in all of its forms, e. g., 
'willing' to compare the intensity of two auditory 
sensations, to find the predicate in a Latin sentence, 
to analyze a complex fact or situation into its ele- 
ments, or to judge as to the soundness of a given 
argument. One might also mention the volitional 
control of the constructive or creative imagination, 
as in designing a machine, in planning a house, or in 
composing music. It is also possible to control or 
modify voluntarily the emotional life. This control 
may consist either in the excitation or repression, 



CONSCIOUSNESS AND ACTION 403 

partial or complete, of the emotional processes. For 
instance, it is possible (as we saw on p. 322, note) 
to arouse a wide range of emotions by assuming 
their outward form. We may 'will' to be joyous or 
sad, kindly or ill-tempered, light-hearted or gloomy, 
credulous or suspicious, to believe or doubt, to be 
brave or to show the white feather, to be terror- 
stricken or calm and self-possessed, by assuming 
the appropriate bodily attitudes and by keeping 
vividly in consciousness the ideas and images which 
support the emotion that we are seeking to arouse. 
A familiar example of the second form of control of 
the emotions is the repression or reduction of an 
emotional outburst, e. g., of anger, by inhibiting its* 
motor expressions — the clenched fist, the set jaw, 
the rigid muscles, the hard breathing of the passion. 
Finally, we may say that any mental process or 
state, simple or complex, which may be an object 
of thought may also be the end or terminus of a 
volitional process. Sometimes the end of the proc- 
ess is reached directly by a series of mental proc- 
esses; sometimes indirectly by a series of bodily 
movements, as in the case of the emotions, just men- 
tioned. 

REFERENCES 

Angell: Psychology, Chs. Ill, XV, XVI, XX, XXI. 
James: Principles of Psychology, Vol. I, Ch. IV, Vol. II, 

Chs. XXII, XXIV, XXVI. 
Judd: Psychology, Chs. VIII, XIII. 
Kirkpatrick: Genetic Psychology, 1909, Ch. IV. 
McDougall: Social Psychology. 
Royce: Outlines of Psychology, Ch. XV. 
Stout: Manual of Psychology, p. 581 ff. 
Titchener: A Text-Book of Psychology, §§ 121-127. 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Abstraction, thought as, 247 ff. 
Actions, kinds of, 354. 
After-images, visual, 88 ff. 
negative and positive distin- 
guished, 89 ff. 
Analysis, as a thought-process, 
276 ff. 
conditions of, 279. 
ANGELL, on relation of vege- 
tative processes to sense of 
well-being, 54. 
on motor images, 150 f. 
on instinctive and reflex ac- 
tion, 357 f. 
on gregarious instinct, 379. 
on mental activity, 399. 
on consciousness of effort, 399. 
Articular sensations, 112. 
Association, meaning of the 

term, 187. 
Association areas in cortex, 36. 

function of, 37. 
Association fibres, 33. 
Associative neurones, 66. 
Associative connections, 185 ff. 

variations among, 189 ff. 
Associations, conditions of for- 
mation of, 193 ff. 
Auditory nerve terminations, 

62 f. 
Auditory sensations, 97 ff. 
Automatic movements, 354 f. 
Attention, the nature of, 161 fC. 
the conditions of, 163 ff. 
the motor concomitants of, 170. 
the sensory concomitants of, 

173 ff. 
the degrees of, 174 fC. 
the range of, 176 ff. 
the forms of, 178. 
voluntary, 179. 
involuntary, 179. 
non-voluntary, ISO. 
popular view of, 181. 



Beats, 102. 

Brain, described, 19 ft. 
CALKINS on components of 
pain sensations. 111. 
on involuntariness of percep- 
tion, 140, 153, 156. 
Cerebral convolutions and fis- 
sures, 24. 
Cerebral functions, localization 

of, 38 ff. 
Cerebral lobes and inter-lobar 

fissures, 24 ff. 
Cerebral peduncles, 22. 
Cerebellum. 22 f. 
Cerebrum, 23 t£ 

white matter of, 31 ff. 
Color blindness, 91 ff. 
statistics of, 92. ' 
inheritance of, 92 f. 
tests for, 93 f. 
Color mixture, 86 ff. 
Color pyramid, 84 f. 
Color zones of retina, 94 ff. 
Commissural fibres, 34. 
Comparison as a thought-proc- 
ess, 269 fe. 
Sully on, 269. 
Stout on, 269. 
conditions of, 270 ff. 
CONDILLAC quoted. 75. 
Consciousness meaning of term, 
1. 
synonyms of, 1 f. 
and nervous system, 14 ff. 
function of human, 351 ff. 
Co-operation, instinctive, 380 f. 
Cortex, the cerebral, 28 ff. 
the cell-bodies of, 30. 
nerve fibres of, 31 f. 
Cortical areas, three types of, 

34 ff. 
Cranial nerves, 49 f. 
405) 



406 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Cramming, 222 ff. 
Jevons on value of, 223. 
James on, 224. 
Abercrombie on, 224. 
SULLY on, 223. 
Titchener on, 225. 
Curiosity, 383 f. 
Cutaneous sensations, l.)'? ff. 
DARWIN on fear, 316. 
on rage, 317. 

on genesis of emotional reac- 
tions, 326 ff. 
on contra^-y impulses of cur- 
iosity and timidity, 394. 
Decision, James, chief types of, 

396. 
Deliberation, 393 ff. 
Dewey, reference, 32,5. 
Discrimination, 272 ff. 
and differentiation, 27.i f. 
individual differences in, 274 ff. 
DONALDSON, on inheritance of 

color-blindness, 93. 
EBBINGHAUS, on inOuence of 
associatioi on feelingtone 
of experience, 313. 
Effort, consciousne.ss of, 39S f. 

conditions of, 490 f. 
Emotion, meaning of the term, 
315. 
distinctive mark of, 315. 
factors of, 316 ff. 
and feeling, 317 f. 
cognitive factor in, 319. 
James-Lange theory of, 319 ff. 
and sentiment compared, 334 

ff. 
and instinct, 359 f. 
Emotional reactions, genesis of, 

325 ff. 
Equivocal figures, 131 ff. 
Fear, bodily signs of, 316. 
instinct of, 374 ff. 
in children, 375 ff. 
FBCHNER, pioneer study of 
imagery, 146. 



Peeling, meaning of the term, 
289 f. 
number of kinds of, 291 ff. 
the mental conditions of, 295 

ff. 
as function of the attributes 

of sensations, 295. 
and organic sensations, 296 ff. 
and conative tendencies, 296 ff. 
and instinctive tendencies, 

297 f. 
dependent on both special and 

organic sensations, 301 f. 
and attributes of intensity 

and duration, 303 f. 
the neural correlates of. 304 ff 
and anabolic and katabolic 

processes, 306 f. 
and hindrance and further- 
ance, 307 ff. 
and habit, 309 f. 
and association, 312 f. 
transference of, 313 f. 
as a factor in emotion, 317 f. 
Feeding instinct, 373 f. 
Fighting instinct, 377 f. 
PLECHSIG, on association 

areas, 36. 
PLOURENS, on functions of 

cerebrum, 39. 
FRITSCH and HITZIG, on local- 
ization of cerebral functions, 
39. 
GALL'S phrenology, 38 f. 
GALTON'S questionaire on im- 
agery, 147 f. 
on verbal imagery, 152, 155. 
Generalization, 281 ff. 
General ideas, origin of, 283 ff. 
Qregariou.sness an instinct, 378 f. 
GROOS, theory of play, 382 f. 
Habit, definition of, 385. 

conditions of habit formation, 

386. 
and instinct, 359, 371. 
HALL, on fear of animals, 376 f. 

on play, 382 f. 
Hallucination, 133 ff. 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



407 



HARDESTY, quoted, 19. 
on sympathetic nervous sys- 
tem, 51 ff. 
Harmonic intervals, 102. 
HOBBES, on association, ISG. 
HOWELL, on function of cere- 
bellum, 22 f. 
on termination of taste-fibres, 

41. 
on color-blindness, 91 ff. 
HUXLEY, use of term psycho- 
sis, 2. 
statement of law of psycho- 
neural perallelism, 15. 
Idea and image, how differ, 

143 ff. 
Idea and ideate, the terms, 

246 f. 
Ideation, thought as, 246 f. 
relation of judgment and, 255 
f. 
Illusions of perception, 125 ff. 
classes of, 126. 

of abnormal consciousness, 
130. 
Illusion figures, 128 f. 
Image and percept compared, 
138 ff. 
and idea compared, 143 ff. 
Images, type, 145. 

class, 145 f. 
Imagery, individual differences 
in, 146 ff. 
Galton's questionaire on, 147 f. 
types of mental, 149 f. 
symbol, 152. 
verbal, 154 ff. 

differences in the attributes of 
characteristic, 157 ff. 
Imaginal and ideational proc- 
esses, sequence of, 205 ff. 
Imagination, defined, 228. 
Imaginative activity, types of, 
228 ff. 
limits of, 231 ff. 
passive and active ditinguish- 

ed. 233 f. 
beginnings of, 234 ff. 



individual differences in, 
237 ff. 
Imitative actions, as sensation 

reflexes, 356 f. 
Individual differences in mental 

imagery, 146 ff. 
Instinctive actions, definition, 
357. 

and reflexes, 357. 

and volitional actions, 358 f. 

and habit, 359. 
Instincts, and emotion, 359 f. 

characteristics of, 360 ff. 

delayed, 360 f. 

are perfected gradually 361 f. 

are interrelated, 362 ff. 

transitoriness of, 364 f. 

differences in strength of, 
365 ff. 

definite and indefinite, 367 ff. 

are modifiable, 370 f. 

tend to pass into habits, 371. 

classification of the principal, 
371 ff. 

individualistic, 372 ff. 

parental or racial, 378. 

social, 378 ff. 

primary and secondary adap- 
tive, 381 f. 

resultant or specialized, 384 f. 

masking of, 394. 
JAMES, on function of associa- 
tion areas, 38. 

on nature of sensation, 71. 

definition of perception, 116. 

on hallucination, 134 f. 

on faculty of imagination, 146. 

on memory consciousness, 
200 f. 

on associative revival, 208. 

on the value of cramming, 224. 

on the nature of thinking, 241. 

on the conditions of analysis. 
279 f. 

on generalization as a psychic 
state, 281 f. 

on emotion, 319 ff. 



408 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



on the genesis of emotional 

reactions, 327. 
on function of human con- 
sciousness, 351 f. 
on appearance of instincts, 

366 f. 
on chief types of decision, 

396 ff. 
on consciousness of effort, 398. 
JAMES-LANGE theory of Emo- 
tion, 319 ff. 
objections to, 322 ff. 
JORDAN and KELLOGG, on 
food-storing activities of 
certain animals, 374. 
JUDD, on association by simi- 
larity, 213. 
on effects of nervous impulses, 
353 f. 
Judgment, thought as, 252. 
as synthesis, 252. 
of objective relations, 253 f. 
and reasoning, 256 f. 
Kinaesthetic senses, 111 f. 
Kinaesthetic images, Angell and 
Titchener on question of, 
150 f. 
KIRKPATRICK, on imitative 
actions, 357. 
on the classification of in- 
stincts, 372. 
statement of Groos' theory of 
play, 382. 
KULPE, on quality as sensation 
attribute, 78. 
on sensory concomitants of 
attention, 173 f. 
LADD, on feelings of pleasure, 
294. 
on sentiment, 338. 
LANGE, JAMES — theory of 

emotion, 391 ff. 
MARSHALL, on classification 

of instincts, 372 
McDOUGALL, on 'storing' of 
Ideas, 202. 
on feeling-tone of sensation, 
302. 



Medulla oblongata, 21. 
Memory, definition of, 198. 
factors of a, 198 ff. 
the conditions of, 201 ff. 
and imagery, 216 f. 
individual differences in, 21S 
ff. 
Memories, Hamilton on prodi- 
gious, 226 f. 
Mental blindness, 43. 
Mental deafness, 43. 
Mental image, term defined, 137. 
Mental imagery, types of, 149 f. 
MENTELLI, a typical intellect- 
ual miser, 342. 
MILL, J. S. on function of 

thought, 243. 
Mind, meaning of term, 1;184. 
Mixed type of imagery, describ- 
ed by Titchener, 151. 
MORGAN, on habit formation in 

chicks, 387. 
Motor cortical areas, 35 f. 
Motor neurones and motor or- 
gans, 66. 
Movements, automatic, 354 f. 
Muscular sensations, 112. 
Nervous system, general view 
of, 17 ff. 
divisions of, 19. 
Neurone, 55 f. 

Neurones, chief groups of, 55 f. 
Sensory and sense organs 57 ff. 
Olfactory stimulus, 103 f. 
Optic nerve fibres, termination 

of, 63 f. 
Organic sensations, 114 f. 

Titchener on knowledge of, 

114. 
as factors of emotion, 316 f., 

320 f. 
and tone of consciousness, 53, 
355. 
Pain, sensation of, 110 f. 
Perception, defined, 116. 

and sensation distinguished, 
117. 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



409 



genesis of, 118 ff. 
Illusions of, 126 ff. 
Perceptual stimuli, variations 

of, 122 f. 
Perceptions of particular things, 

variations in, 123 ff. 
Percept and image compared, 

138 fC. 
Peripheral nervous system, 48 

ff. 
Phrenology of Gall and Spurz- 

heim, 34 f. 
PIERSOL, on structure of oto- 
lith membrane, 113. 
PILLSBURY, on the neural 
basis of hallucinations, 135. 
experiment on attention, 168. 
on the range of attention, 
177 f. 
Pitch, 99. 

Play, theories of Spencer, Groos, 
and Hall, concerning, 382 ff. 
Pons Varolii, 21 f. 
Pressure, sensations of, 108. 
PREYER, on children's fears, 

376. 
Projection fibres, 31 f. 
Psychology, defined, 1. 
divisions of the field of, 2 f. 
normal and abnormal distin- 
guished, 2. 
TItchener's classification of 

the fields of, 4. 
the methods of, 5 f. 
points of view, 7 ff. 
subject-matter of introduc- 
tory course in, 11 ff. 
Psycho-neural correlation, law 

of, 15. 
Pure sensation, 74 f. 
Racial instincts, 378. 
Rage, symptoms of, 317. 
Reasoning, judgment and, 256 f. 
defined, 257. 
explicit, 258 f. 

and reasoned judgments dis- 
tinguished, 260 f. 



implicit, 262 f. 

inductive and deductive, dis- 
tinguished, 264 f. 
Recall, active and passive dis- 
tinguished, 214 ff. 
Recollection, 214, 402. 
Reflex action, defined, 355. 

pure, and sensation reflexes 
distinguished, 356 f. 

imitative actions as, 356 f. 
Retention, how explained, 203 f. 
Retina, 64 f. 

color zones of, 94 ff. 
Revival, the process of, 204 f. 

secondary laws of associative, 
207 ff. 

spontaneous, 210 f. 

through similarity, 211 ff. 
RIBOT, quotation from Men- 

telli's biography, 342. 
SEASHORE, on color zones of 
retina, 96. 

on distinction of pain and un- 
pleasantness, 110. 

questions on imagery, 149 f., 
158, 159. 
Sensation, defined, 69. 

as mental element, 69 f. 

and stimulus, 71 f. 

cognitive function of, 72 f. 

as earliest form of conscious- 
ness, 73 f. 

pure, 74 f. 

attributes of, 77 ff. 
Sensations, classification of, SO f. 

visual, 82 ft. 

auditory, 97 ff. 

of smell, 103 ff. 

of taste, 105 ff. 

cutaneous, 107 ff. 

of pressure, 108. 

of temperature, 109. 

of pain, 110 f. 

kinaesthetic. 111 ff. 

organic, 114 f. 
Sensory cortical centers, 35 f. 
Sensory endings, free, 59. 

encapsulated, 59 f. 



410 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



Sensoi-y qualities, differentia- 
tion of, 75 ff. 
Sense-organs, the special, 61 ff. 
Sentiment, meaning- of the term, 
333. 
and emotion compared, 334 ff. 
Stout on, 336. 
Shand, on, 338 f. 
Sentiments, intellectual, 340 ff. 
moral, 342 ff. 
aesthetic, 347 ff. 
SHAND, on nature of senti- 
ment, 333 f. 
Similarity, revival through, 

211 ff. 
Smell, organ of, 62. 
relations of sensations of, 104. 
classes of sensations of, 104 f. 
Social instincts, 378 ff. 
Somaesthetic area in cortex, 

41 f. 
Spinal cord, structure of, 44 f. 

functions of, 46 f. 
Spinal nerves, 51. 
SPURZHEIM'S phrenology, 38 f. 
Stimulus defined, 71 f. 

maximal and minimal, 71 f. 
STOUT, on, distinction between 
cause of sensation and the 
object of sense-perception, 
72. 
on the difference between per- 
cept and image, 140. 
on verbal imagery, 153. 
on the conditions of associa- 
tion, 195. 
on the servlceableness of 

memory, 219 f. 
on comparison, 269. 
on feeling and conative ten- 
dencies, 296 f. 
on question, are pleasant 
stimuli beneficial. 306. 
on the James-Lange theory of 

emotion, 323 ff. 
on sentiment, 333 ff. 



on relation of emotion and 

sentiment, 336. 
on organic sensations, 355. 
SUIjLY, influence of association 
on feeling-tone of experi- 
ence, 312 f. 
on beginnings of aesthetic 

sentiment, 348. 
on sound fears, 375. 
Sympathetic nervous system, 

51 ff. 
Sympathy, instinctive, 379. 
Taste, organs of, 61. 

distribuation of organs of, 105 
f. 

Taste sensations, classes and 

relations of, 106 f. 
TAYLOR, on location of motor 

region of cortex, 35. 
on connections of the auditory 

nerves, 36. 

Temperature, sensations of, 
109 f. 

Tendinous sensations, 112. 
Thinking, the nature of, 241 ff. 
THORNDIKE, on function of 
associative neurones, 67. 
on development of world of 

sense, 71. 
on tendency of instincts to 

pass into habits, 371. 
on development of habits 
from instincts, 388. 
Thought as ideation, 245 f. 
as abstraction, 247 ff. 
as judgment, 251. 
vehicles of, 266 ff. 
beginnings of, 286 ff. 
Thought-processes, as functions, 
243 f. 
classes of, 244 f. 
Timbre, 101 f. 

TITCHENER, classification of 
psychology by, 3 f. 
on function of free sensory 
nerve endings, 59. 



INDEX OF NAMES AND SUBJECTS 



411 



on the functions of various 
encapsulated sensory end- 
ings, 59 f. 

on sensation as structural 
element, 70. 

on the attributes of sensa- 
tion, 78 f. 

on colour mixture, 87 f. 

on the difference between 
tones and noises, 99. 

on difference tones, 102 f. 

classification of sensations of 
smell, 104 f. 

on antagonistic tastes, 107. 

on sensations of pressure, 108. 

on distribution of tempera- 
ture organs, 109. 

on touch blends, 113 f. 

on weight illusion, 133. 

on mental imagery, 148. 

on mixed types of imagery, 
151. 

on auditory-kinaesthetic im- 
ages, 157. 

on the memory consciousness, 
200 f. 

on cramming, 225. 

on the development of the 
concept 'attribute', 250 f. 

on general ideas, 282. 

on the term 'feeling', 289. 



on Wundt's tridimensional 
theory of feeling, 293 f. 
Tones and noises distinguished, 

99. 
Tones, attributes of, 99 f. 
classes of, 101 f. 
compound, 101. 
difference, 102. 
Touch-blends, Titchener's, 113 f. 
Verbal imagery, James on, 154. 
kinds of, 154 f. 
Calkins on, 156. 
Visual sensations, classes of, 

82 f. 
Volitional action, the nature of, 
389 ff. 
factors in, 389 ff. 
Volitional activity, internal, 402. 
WASHBURN, on the origin of 
the consciousness of ' 'if, 
'but', etc., 267 f. 
'Will', the alleged consciousness 

of a, 398 f. 
WUNDT, on localization of cer- 
ebral functions, 40 ff. 
kinds of feeling according to, 

292 f. 
on the James-Lange theory of 
emotion, 322 f. 
Zones, retinal, 94 f. 



INDEX OF FIGURES. 

FIGURE, PAGE. 

1. Nervous System, General arrangement of human. 16 

2. Central Nervous System, ventral aspect of the.. 18 

3. Brain, inferior aspect of human 20 

4. Brain, superior aspect of human 23 

5. Brain, lateral aspect of human 25 

6. Brain, mesial aspect of human 26 

. 7. Cortex, section of 30 

8. Peduncular fibres of cerebrum 32 

9. Association fibres of cerebrum 33 

10. Commissural fibres of cerebrum 34 

11. Cross-section of spinal cord 45 

12. Principal functions of spinal cord 47 

13. Sympathetic nervous system, general plan and 

connections of 52 

14. Typical cell-bodies of neurones 54 

15. Phylogenetic and ontogenetic development of nerve 

cells 56 

16A. End-bulb of Krause 58 

16B. Meissner corpuscle 58 

16C. Motor 'end-plate' in voluntary muscle. 58 

16D. Free sensory nerve endings 58 

16E. Motor termination in non-striated muscles 58 

16F. Termination of sensory nerve in tendon 58 

16G. Pacinian corpuscle 58 

17. Taste-bud 61 

18. Olfactory cells 62 

19. Diagrammatic section through right ear 63 

20. Horizontal section through left eye 64 

21. Diagrammatic section of the retina 65 

22. The color pyramid 84 

23. The color circle 88 

24. Figure to demonstrate negative after-image. ... 90 

(412) 



INDEX OF FIGURES 413 
FIGURE. PAGE. 

25. Color fields of right eye 95 

26. Properties of sound waves 98 

27. Illusion figui'es: Miiller-Lyer and Zollner 128 

28. Illusion figures: Hering's, et. al 129 

29. Equivocal figure: rabbit-duck 130 

30. Equivocal figure: superimposed triangles 131 

31. Equivocal figures 132 

32. Diagram illustrating variations in degrees of at- 

tention 177 

33. Diagram of association through similarity 213 

34. Diagram of Wundt's three dimensions of feeling. 292 



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